


New Thinking

by FlameoSirFlameo



Series: New Thinking [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Divergent? Probably, F/F, Longest of Long Games, Moira has given up on relationships, Post-Overwatch Moira, RealWordsFakeScience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlameoSirFlameo/pseuds/FlameoSirFlameo
Summary: Moira has no reason to hide, but learned long ago others did not react well to her particular brand of honesty. What she believes is right they label as unattainable; what they tout as morality she sees as facade. They have a thing in them trained, which she knew not in herself how to begin taming.Moira had not expected to find… well one doesn’t ever expect to be surprised.
Relationships: Moira O'Deorain & Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Moira O'Deorain/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Moira O'Deorain/Reader
Series: New Thinking [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100723
Comments: 25
Kudos: 69





	1. The Gala

The light of twenty nano flashes burns your eyes and you smile wider. Only a small fraction of postdoctoral applicants are accepted, and you made the cut. It wasn’t easy and everyone here knows it. The photographers finish and your group disperses, each person a star in their own right, some with more gravitational pull but all burning hot tonight. 

It shouldn’t be this enjoyable. Tonight was advertised as celebrating the new additions, but the real purpose is fundraising with you and your fellows trotted around as a prime example of what great things new money can do. Yet you can’t help but bask in the atmosphere and congratulate yourself on years of hard work well spent. 

This institution is one of the best. An expansive privately-funded research campus with an affiliated university. Known for attracting and retaining the world’s top minds, and a reputation for keeping them out of the hands of competitors, whatever the cost. The thought thrills you, that you share a commonality with this place already: a ruthless desire for excellence.

You meet guests: researchers and donors and other postdocs, smiling when they smile and tucking aside little personal details they don’t know they’ve given away for later use. 

After about an hour of casual conversation you pluck a glass of champagne from a passing tray and climb stairs to the second level walkway. It’s cooler up here and you relish the feeling of being alone near a crowd. Leaning on the balustrade lets you close your eyes and listen to the murmur of voices below. You press your thigh against the vertical columns for stability and gently trace two fingers over the handrail’s cool marble, drinking in momentary sensations and letting your mind rest.

“Hello there.” Irish accent behind you, deep female voice. Smooth as cooling metal, recently poured and glowing from the fire.

You turn, still attentive to your purpose as token of a prosperous future. “Hello.”

She’s confident, tall, makes you feel like the room just got darker and you’re slipping on the fine line between shadow and light. Her fox-fur red hair is meticulous, smoothed back and drawing attention to the length and slope of her neck. Her style of dress is simply elegant, a white silk shirt under black suit jacket; the cut suits her but you wonder at the shirt, buttoned too high for the occasion, as if shoring herself up. She languidly swirls dark liquid in a glass between long fingers finishing in perfect nails. Time is a concept you once knew and oh god you don’t know how long you’ve been staring.

“You’re very tight-lipped for someone who couldn’t stop chatting everyone up earlier.”

Your attention snaps back. “I’ve been getting to know the other new researchers.”

“Oh? And now do you know them?” Directness. She looks straight at you but not mocking, although her tone could be mistaken for it. She’s not making small talk, she’s really asking. 

A pause. She is honest, so you should be too. It’s refreshing in the superficial party atmosphere. You glance back down to the first floor and notice one of your fellow postdocs gesturing wildly while telling a story to a small but attentive audience, one man with a wine stain on his shirt holding the arm of a woman who is smiling only with her teeth. 

“Yes. Jackson is here to make a name for himself, but he speaks too quickly and won’t listen to criticism. Roberts is a gossip who idolizes Dr. Winters. Dr. Winters doesn’t notice him, she’s too concerned by some trivial feud with Dr. Anderson. Preethi has creative solutions, but she is out of her element here. I hope she can settle in before the others scare her away.”

Glass suspended halfway to her mouth, meant to take a sip but forgotten. The woman exhales slowly and in an obscure fleeting fantasy you imagine stepping forward into it, like perfume. “My. You are observant. Fascinating.”

A waiter reaches the end of the landing, sees your exchange, darts eyes to the woman. He abruptly turns, body language that of serving a guest urgently needing his attention elsewhere, if only he could find one. The postdoc below must’ve finished his story because drunken laughter carries upstairs.

“And what do you make of me?” She slips one hand in her pocket and again gives you that direct gaze, not mocking. A challenge. You accept, opening yourself to her presence. Her eyes burn with a clarity of perception and a question, a hope. You see her seeing through you, sight past and pushing you away and pulling you closer, and what is there for a second is gone a blink later. So much and not enough and you shouldn’t keep her waiting but the words won’t come.

You catalog many things, none of which can be summed up in a sentence. Most alarming (charming) is raw power, but the power isn’t directed anywhere, wasted potential. She’s fraying at the edges, like a wire held under tension for a long period of time. A sharp blow would snap her. It’s… a kind of fatigue, but she hides it well. Her shoulder rests against the wall. To any passerby it would seem casual, but from the way her suit jacket wrinkles at the contact point you can tell she’s leaning more weight there than her posture suggests. 

Why? There's a discordance between that tension and the way she’s speaking with you. You don’t understand why she’d feel the need to put up a front when you can see she’s full of competence. With a healthy dose of arrogance perhaps, but not unfounded. She knows her worth. She honors you with sincerity, and you’ve done nothing to deserve it. Nothing you can figure at least.

Is this how she meets all unknowns then? Your respect for her increases. To openly measure the intrinsic value of another person, that defies social convention and you admire her immensely for it.

And yet. There’s no one vying for her attention, not even that prick Jackson. Can’t they see? A terrible possibility floats up, buoyed by the indistinct buzz of a thousand voices you’re beginning to despise. They’ve written her off. Then why is she here? _That’s_ a question you want answered. Or perhaps not, for dignity’s sake.

 _What do you make of me?_ Everything, in so many words. You want to tell her not to give in to whatever holds her at its mercy, and now that you’ve met her you feel stronger, fortified by her existence. 

“Well?"

“I…I’d rather not say.”

“Oh come now, you’re so forthright about the others.”

“You’re not like the others.” Is it the champagne that makes you say this? You almost clap a hand over your mouth before you realize no, it’s her. She does this to you. Is doing this to you. 

A low but genuine laugh. Her eyes are actually closed, her shoulders lose a fraction of their tension. 

“Come work for me.”

Elegance, arrogance. You’re like a moth to the flame; is this a game for her? It doesn’t matter if so, you’d gladly burn a thousand times over just to hear her laugh again.

Still… she can’t be serious. “My field is Applied Physics. I’m already slated to work for Dr. Han. Do you work with Dr. Han?”

A stupid question. She wouldn’t work for anyone. That’s something you could’ve told her. 

“Where are my manners. I am Doctor Moira O’Deorain. Geneticist. Facility B5. I’ll speak with Dr. Han. Be in my lab 8:00 am Monday morning. Unless you have any objections?”

A breath. “None.”

* * *

Tonight was more interesting that Moira had anticipated. She’d attended the gala to observe the charade, small people in expensive clothing hoping the lights and glitz and drink would make their mundane conversations more interesting. She really had intended to only observe.  
In public she has no reason to hide, but learned long ago others did not react well to her particular brand of honesty. It’s just truth, she thinks, pure and simple. They are the ones who are different, unnatural. They have a thing in them trained, which she knew not in herself how to begin taming. She knew no other way to live, unshackled. Had given up searching for this in others, her work was enough. Would have to be enough. But at times when she hadn’t slept her mind would wander unchecked toward a form of perfection that looked uncannily like… well. No. _She’s_ not perfect. _She_ was a pawn.  
Moira had not expected to find… well one doesn’t ever expect to be surprised. This new research partner. She’d been impulsive. It had been a long time since someone had intrigued her like that. Two years, in fact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though this is written from a reader's perspective, I ended up with enough notes to add a section at the end of each chapter from Moira's pov.
> 
> Completely self-indulgent? Why yes this is, thank you for asking ;)  
> I have no beta reader, so all spelling and grammar mistakes are due to tired eyes or my cat's paws.


	2. The Lab

Her basement lab is dark. And cold. Yet not unwelcoming. Full of potential. Like a cool night without a moon, so you can better see the stars.

It’s been five weeks. She doesn’t laugh, but sometimes doesn’t sigh when you crack a joke.

You were afraid to joke at first, but then realized what you admire should be examined, not blindly worshipped. So you started examining. Little things. She likes her coffee black. She keeps a spare set of clothing in the lab coat closet. Her nails are freshly painted every Tuesday. She is incredibly animated when discussing the potential benefits of rapid cell mutation, and more than once you’ve stayed late listening to her mind work and damning the wasted days before you knew such serenity existed. The little things.

When Jackson and Roberts heard about your position in O’Deorain’s lab they asked why you got a doctorate if you only planned to cannibalize your career. You could feel the shadow of Dr. O’Deorain looming in conversations with other postdocs and in whispers behind your back, and so set to chip away at this monolith before it crushed you. 

You pressed coffee in the lab, and brought it to her at her bench. Progressively early morning arrivals revealed she gets in no earlier than 6am, so you spent a week arriving at 05:45 to see if it provoked any words of praise. None. Of course. From then on you shifted to morning workouts and rolled in at 08:00. She gave you more work after that, and you finished it. This suited you both.

She hums to the rabbits before injecting them. It’s melodic and low and at times you swear she whispers a few lines of a song. You assume it’s unfathomably old and richly Gaelic. Later when she asks you to transfer a file from her computer you find an open playlist with a photo of a shirtless man painted with lightning. Ah. Not so traditional then.

She does speak Gaelic though. Swears, you suspect. Mostly because it holds the same inflections as when she curses in English. Thinks out loud too, but that’s something you both share. At least _she_ has the advantage of being able to follow your train of thought, should she so choose.

She looms over her lab bench, simultaneously running simulations and concocting new batches of genetic programming solution. A baker works with fine precision and a chef in organized chaos; she is neither and both - an scientist meticulous in her craft but impulsive and whimsical when the mood strikes.

The lab is practically her home; she often dwells for hours past dinnertime, forgetting to eat, or perhaps forgetting she should. On difficult days when the solutions don’t want to mix your mind wanders to absurdity and you wonder if she sleeps standing up, or if you weren’t here to remind her of the outside world if she’d sleep at all. You wonder what she looks like when she’s exhausted, barely able to lift a finger from days of working them to the bone. You start to imagine how it would feel to help her to the office couch, to coax her to lie down _for only ten minutes_ , to feel the soft fabric of her expensive, long-sleeved shirts under you palm - and that’s usually about the time you ruin a round of samples and have to start over. 

You’re hopelessly uneducated about genetics. What did she expect? Your past accomplishments are significant, and sure you’re comfortable in a lab: here the hazards are merely liquid instead of laser. But your intuition is all you have to go on otherwise, and it’s stretched to the limit. You’re flattered that she asked, but after a week you try to give her an out.

“Dr. O’Deorain I’m sure I can find you an undergrad who knows how to isolate chromosomes better than this. I can even create a list of potential candidates. I don’t want to waste any more of your valuable time.”

“You’re a quick study, give it another week.”

“Thank you but…”

“All life is built on the same principles. In physics you explored the means by which atoms exist and interact. Genetics is what those atoms exist _for_. What shall humanity profit if we possess the tools to move planets while our bodies and minds decay? I could easily have my pick from the undergraduate hordes. What you will learn in my lab is how to select the exceptional from the common. Now get back to work.”

You ruin three more sample trays before succeeding, and reward yourself with a protein bar from the vending machine. You begin sitting in on the standard evolutionary genetics and bioengineering lectures twice a week - hoping the instructor won’t notice and complicate your already precarious working relationship with O’Deorain. Three weeks in she says nothing when you suggest storing the samples in individual temperature-controlled cases in order to maintain the integrity of the stem cell lines. She just smiles and links you to the requisition system. 

She is not a monolith no, but she is demanding and enthralled by her experiments. You’ve seen her in moments of frustration, the way a sigh builds into a curse and a balled fist, and also in moments of success, when a rare smile reaches her eyes and fine strands of hair hang free to brush her cheeks.

You fall into an easy rhythm: five days each week in the lab, then six. Afternoons stretch into evenings stretch into those discourses on redefining the limitations of human potential you both enjoy so much. Discussions where the differences between genetics and physics no longer matter, and you can hear a lightness in her voice that’s never there during the day. Others may say it’s not healthy, but what better would you do with your time? Your small and modern apartment—included as a perk from the institution—becomes only for the necessities: sleeping, eating, and dreaming. The clean simplicity sharpens your mind.

At home you review the recent genetics literature and bookmark her publications, though ‘recent’ is a stretch for those. You wonder at the gap since she last published —seven years— but great work does take time after all. You savor her papers as one would favorite bedtime stories, read and re-reading them over again to absorb her style and let it steep within you. Her writing is precise and uncompromising, with a flair for the dramatic. She actually once used the phrase “ominous portent” when describing restrictions placed on biomedical research. 

In a moment of weakness you open a private browser and search for information on her personal life. You find nothing of note, and that in itself is noteworthy, like record of her has been entirely erased. A few genetics awards over seven years ago, and… oh. Several pages deep her name appears on a list of former Overwatch service members, next to a line of bold red text that makes your blood run cold. _BCD GCM: Bad-Conduct Discharge awarded at General Court—Martial_

You shut your laptop and push it quickly away, as if that physical act could lock the information in and prevent you from knowing. But it’s already spiraling through your mind and you’re doing what you do best, what comes unbidden and at times like this unwanted: picking apart a puzzle. _Bad-Conduct Discharge_ … well at least she didn’t kill anyone. _General Court-Martial_ … you imagine her on trial, stoic. You want to think ‘that poor court didn’t know what it was in for’ but you can’t quite bring yourself to laugh. You turn off the light and climb into bed, vowing never to bring this up with O’Deorain. We are our actions, not our past.

~~~

One Saturday your eyes need a rest after calibrating the DNA sequencing sensor* and Dr. O’Deorain is an easy distraction. She’s currently reclining in a discarded office chair, feet up on the black bench top, tablet in hand and lost to the world.

“Do you do this to everyone who works for you?”

“Be more specific.” Doesn’t even look up from the article she’s reading.

“Break them down until…” You don’t know how to phrase it. It’s so simple, but not easy. “Break them down. And make them want to thank you for it.”

“Muscles must be torn to be rebuilt stronger.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Am I? I have had few lab assistants. Even fewer collaborators…” She sets down the tablet and looks at her right hand, flexing her fingers. For a moment she is gone, gaze turned inward. With an effort, she brings herself back into the conversation. “No, not all of them last. Not all of them are meant to.” 

* * *

Moira has worked alone for so long now that sometimes she looks up and is startled to see her new associate. She does not regret bringing her on - despite her lack of training in genetics they’ve made more progress in the last month than Moira had for many previous. She knows a brilliant mind is a terrible thing. To waste it in Han’s lab would’ve been a sin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * [Sequencing by Synthesis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCd6B5HRaZ8&ab_channel=Illumina)


	3. The Question

Six months and countless late nights from the first broken vial, you marvel at how far you’ve come in such a short span. The rabbit sitting before you is pure, cured of it’s intentionally-bred genetic diseases. Not only that, but several helper genes have been introduced to correct for any future errors. 

With Dr. O’Deorain’s edits coded by your hand, aging is slowed to an almost imperceptible pace. The rabbit chews on the bar of its cage, unaware it is practically immortal.

Dr. O’Deorain unclasps the buckles of her lab coat and hangs it on the wall, one finger lingering on the hook. “Nothing like this exists on earth, except in this lab. We’ve created what others deemed impossible. This is the most important thing happening in the world today, and no one knows it.” 

“We know it.”

You do not look at each other. On the rabbit’s front paw there is a shaved patch of skin, the only evidence it has been affected by human hands. 

You’ve noticed an emotional undercurrent in Dr. O’Deorain for the past few days, and it seems to have finally crested. Vacillations between irritation and excitement at every stage, but now that you’re finished she’s smiling, uncontrollably grinning. Hands in her pockets and usually rigid shoulders relaxed. Communication between you two has come with ease lately, and you privately congratulate yourself on finally being able to think clearly in her presence.

She rolls her shoulders then as an afterthought loosens her tie, flicking open the top shirt button to expose a small V of pale skin that rises and falls with each steady breath. The delicate tendons in her neck flex to create branching shadows in the indirect lab light. She glances back at the rabbit, the pride of accomplishment shining in her eyes. If joy is the meaning of existence, and what gives one joy a closely-guarded secret, then you’ve seen her naked in this moment. 

She catches you staring. Narrows her eyes, amused. “Care to comment?”

You’re embarrassed to be caught, but glad for her, “I’ve never seen you so happy.”

“The problem with mastering your emotions is that people will think you don’t have any.”

“I know better.”

“Then you won’t be surprised that I want to celebrate. Drink?”

She returns from her office with a bottle of whiskey and two (hopefully sterile) 250ml beakers.

A generous splash of spirit flows into each. You accept a beaker and absentmindedly note the level at 100ml. She is either a strong drinker or plans to be here a while. Or both. That thought is an enticing one. 

She raises her glass, “To the continuous struggle for the superiority of ideas. When faced with a setback, we must challenge our assumptions.”

You don’t grasp her full meaning, but it’s a nice concept and you respond with a sincere “The superiority of ideas!” as your glasses kiss across the gap. 

The whiskey is peaty and dry, coating your throat and leaving a residual heat that spreads down to your toes. After a brief silence, and swirling of liquid, she fixes you with a stare and a sly smile that catches you off guard. 

“Tell me what you saw that night, when you wouldn’t say.”

A fragile pause while you gauge the balance. Though she is always ‘Dr. O’Deorain’ at work you’ve taken to thinking of her as ‘Moira’ in the imagined conversations you two have in your head. The ones where she somehow always ends up inviting you to continue the discussion over dinner. Or drinks, you realize, taking another sip of whiskey.

These last six months have sharpened you, broken off unnecessary habits and discarded dead wood until only precision remains. That’s her influence and your effort. You think you’ve earned the right to not hold back, but you’re still hesitant. “Do you really want to know?”

“It’s why I hired you.”

You move to two spare chairs pushed into a corner, and pull them closer. Seated, her height is not nearly as imposing. You settle back, and level your eyes with hers. She relaxes into the chair and sips at her drink. You inhale composure and exhale nerves, aligning the details even though you’ve replayed that scene countless times in your head. 

“That night, at the gala, you spoke to me. I thought you were a professor meeting the new hires, being polite. Obviously I had no idea who you were.”

You both smile at the absurdity of Dr. O’Deorain being frivolously social.

“But then you asked, so I examined. You were under great pressure, but didn’t want it to show. Your shoulders gave it away. Too tense. Don’t worry, I’m sure only I noticed. Because that’s the thing - there was no one else _to_ notice. You’re brilliant. You’re driven and beautiful. You spoke to me like no one else would dare that night, without pretense. I admired that more than I can say. And not one person was trying to catch your eye. You were better by far than the everyone in that room. No reporters pulled you aside for an interview. I wondered what working every day among those who can’t appreciate your abilities would do to someone like you.  
What little I did say, I meant it. You’re not like anyone else. You’re a force and you know it. You deserve better. Your own research team, a private lab. I wondered what brought you here, and why you stayed.”

There’s a silence in the pause that balloons. During your reply her face slipped from a smile to a smirk to a guarded mask. Now she’s not even looking at you. Fingers tight on the arm of her chair. White knuckles give it away.

“I hope you understand why I couldn’t answer when you asked. Sometimes words are too small for a thing, and that _(and this?_ you think) was one of those times.”

Her spine straightens and twists, eyes flitting back and forth and she blinks twice, as if searching for footing, a reason or lifeline. 

Her profile is sharp. The woman who is always so collected now has the tension of a bird poised for flight. 

“You can’t be serious.” 

“…What?”

She’s loud, not measuring her words. This is new. “That’s fucking bullshit.”

“Moira?” 

Turns. Glares. “Fuck off!”

“Moira!”

“I am _Doctor O’Deorain_.”

Silence again, save for a low roar from the industrial building cooling system, and electronic beeping from an experiment timer across the lab. That tone was one you’d not heard from her before. It spoke of boundaries and unscalable walls. 

You pull in a deep breath and try to remain calm. She’s still looking at you, and you register anger and pain, behind it. 

_This is wrong._ But you’re not sure if it’s her or you. The weight of her last words settles on you and you resign yourself to the consequences, lost for what else to do.

You speak slowly, not breaking eye contact, willing each word forward to chip at her walls. “I apologize, _Doctor O’Deorain_. I’ve been rambling on, wasting your time. If there’s nothing else I can do for you I really should be going.”

You set down the beaker and stand up to gather your few possessions. You pick up your lab notebook, containing all the evidence of shared months’ successes and failures, then lay it back down on the table with a finality. Gazing back at Dr. O’Deorain, her eyes are unfocused. She’s in a different room, on a different day.

“Goodnight.”

* * *

In the years since her dismissal from Overwatch Moira had become stone. To hide her character from the world was a temporary measure that has stretched into permanence and taken its toll. Those she opened up to had snubbed her in the end, so she rid herself of the need of others. She had sworn never to let anyone close enough to wound her again. She hadn’t found a reason to relent, but of course she hadn’t been looking. It was like being doused with ice water to discover she’d been seen, truly seen, when she thought herself locked away. Moira downs the rest of her drink, and contends with the sick feeling in her stomach that has nothing to do with alcohol.


	4. The Tea

Well that’s that. You’re definitely fired. Six months in Moira O’Deorain’s employ has to be a record. 

Since it happened on a Friday you had the weekend to yourself. Worked out, cleaned your small modern institute-issued apartment. Tried to remember anything from your research before. You’ll need to apply for another lab position. If you can even show your face on this campus any more. Oh god has she blacklisted your name? Probably. 

Sunday afternoon light warms a small patch of hardwood floor. You warm water for a pot of tea. How could you have underestimated her? A predator backed into a corner lashes out. It’s your fault, you know. You’re just an extra pair of hands and she’s… incredible. Insufferable. 

The anger was understandable, but the flicker of pain in her expression is a splinter you can't stop worrying at.

Three sharp knocks on your door. The other postdocs will occasionally stop by, but haven’t for weeks now. You haven’t been home for weeks, except to sleep. You walk the short stretch of hallway separating kitchen from front door, and look through the peephole. It’s her. 

Your heart rises to your throat where it sticks, a ball of misgivings too thick to swallow. The rational part of your brain tries to calculate the seconds since she knocked and screams at you to open the door. Has she come to officially fire you? Termination papers can be sent via email. Should you open the door? You want to hear her voice again. One of you must be a masochist. Best to find out who.

You open the door. 

She is dressed in slacks and a silk shirt, no tie. Her hair is perfect, but her eyes are tired. More than usual.

“Hello Dr. O’Deorain.” 

“Hello.” 

She makes an almost imperceptible shift from one foot to the other. Her eyes don’t meet yours, yet. She holds your lab notebook in her hand. Oh. 

“Well, are you going to invite me in?” 

“Yes of course.” You gesture in. “Please.”

She sweeps briskly past but the entryway is so small her shoulder brushes yours. A fleeting, impersonal touch. You stiffen at the contact, but she gives no sign of noticing. 

You follow a beat later to find her standing precipitously in the middle of your kitchen; she seems briefly surprised by the space. Well if she wanted a conference room she should’ve set a meeting. 

Her voice is clipped and overly professional for someone now in your kitchen after cursing you out of her lab. “About the other day. I—”

Stops, reaches to adjust a tie that isn’t there. 

“Please sit down Dr. O’Deorain.” Too formal. This isn’t an interview, you remind yourself, it’s a crucifixion. Everything is awkward and you’re not sure how this can end well. “Would you like tea? I was just about to pour myself some.” You randomly grab another mug from the cabinet. Time crawls and flies on parallel tracks, allowing you to mark every detail of this moment even though you’re handing her a filled mug before you know it. 

She sits. You sit. “Thank you.”

Your lab notebook rests in front of her on the kitchen table, the institute-standard blue marbled cover a painfully familiar sight. Dr. O’Deorain clasps her hands over it. Her long nails are beautiful, her movements sharp and small. With a quick inhale her eyes flicker to yours, but before you can see the unguarded hope in them she’s gazing back down to her fingers.

“As I was saying. The other day. I asked you a question.” 

“Yes. I… realize that was more than you were asking, and I had no grounds to say everything I did.“ 

“You were right.” Quietly. Steadying breath. Then she continues calmly but without pause, carried by a momentum that if stopped won’t be able to start again. “For weeks before the gala I’d been working on a new solution for damaged tissue repair. It was a failure. All of my experiments for the preceding eight months had been failures. I was a failure. I went to the gala as a distraction, I was preparing a sample in the lab and it needed time to rest.”

She turns her right palm over in her left, and traces a raised, dark purple vein with one finger. 

“There are lines some won’t cross, which for others are lines in sand. Both cases are needless. There is only truth, and the lengths one will go to to seek it. I have had… success… before with certain methods, and was prepared to try again.”

Undoes the cuff button at her right wrist.

“My new solution had a calculated 50% success rate, yet all the rabbits died after injection. I had attempted every other method of recourse. I needed data from combination with human tissue to understand what I was missing.” She speaks quietly, ever the pragmatist. “I had nothing left to lose. I can boast no collaborators; there is no one here who shares my love of pure research. They are fools …and I am among them.”

She begins efficiently rolling up her sleeve. Not rushing, but neither slow to play for dramatic effect. Just matter of fact like she’s outlining a new lab procedure. You assumed her seemingly endless supply of Oxford shirts was another facet of her personality, rigid and uncompromising. You even thought her prudish, until your last interaction having never seen an inch more of her skin than propriety would permit.

“Someone once cautioned me against working alone. She said I lacked perspective. Ha. Unlike her I was working for all human potential, not from a shortsighted desire for fame or approval…but intentions count for nothing now.”

She catches herself, blinks and raises her eyebrows. Refocuses. Settles her hands back atop your lab notebook, her now-exposed arm a challenge to the senses. 

Purplish black veins spiderweb across milk white skin, crisscrossing and asymmetrically bulging before disappearing under her rolled sleeve. You have never seen such a grotesque sight, and the novelty is heightened by the fact that her arm is there, moving in front of you. Your mind insists it shouldn’t be able to. It should be dead. It’s wonderful.

“I don’t doubt you did your research after you found out my name. I daresay I have a reputation. You wonder why I’m here. After I was removed from Overwatch nowhere else would have me. I’m an embarrassment. They’re hedging a bet here, with me. The conditions of my position are set: scant funding and no public record of my employment. I report directly to the board. But I can continue to work, and that is reward enough.

"My methods have been questioned, but one can’t deny my discoveries. When I can produce them. You may feel slighted, but grant me this: I took you away from a typical career to do research that challenges your true potential. You may leave anytime you wish.”

She stops to sip from her tea, and you begrudge her nothing. But she isn’t finished. 

“The night of the gala I had planned to return to the lab and administer the solution to myself. Our… interaction caused me to reconsider. That would’ve been the second formula. What you see before you are the results of my first formula, administered two years ago.

"Your observations were sound. I underestimated you, and I wasn’t prepared for your insight. For that, I apologize.”

In the periphery you sense her gaze on you, gauging your reaction. 

You pull your eyes away from her arm. When did it happen? This shift in the room, the balance transfer that leaves you scrambling for footing. Even in apology she is in control. She’s offering an olive branch when all you hoped for was an explanation.

“If I was afraid of crossing lines I would’ve left your lab on the first day. I want the challenge, there’s nothing better. I’ve read your papers, they told me what I needed to know. I don’t give a damn what anyone whispers about you, but I won’t condone taking impractical risks based on half-baked hypotheses. You’re too good for that.“

You don’t mention the court martial, because she didn’t. 

She studies you. Thinking. Nods gently. Mutters under her breath and it sounds like ‘ _She_ would say that’ and you stall on the brink of asking _who?_ , but the moment has passed and she’s already confessed much more to you than her usual rigidity would permit. 

She pushes your lab notebook across the table. 

“I am going to resume my old work. If you have not yet accepted a new position, I would welcome your insight and… perspective in my lab.”

“Dr. O’Deorain—“

“Call me Moira.”

* * *

_The thinker sits alone growing older  
And so bitter  
She gave them life,  
She gave them all  
They drained her very soul dry... _  


Moira lowers the volume on her antique record player, and sits down at her desk to draw up a research timetable. The start of a new project always thrills her, fills her with fantastic sense of possibility.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Lover to the Dawn, Bowie ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu-_zMKku0Y&ab_channel=Astorte)
> 
> #layers people, layers :D


	5. The Wall

“Wait-“ 

You’re not sure what hits first, your shirt on the floor or your back against the wall, but gravity seems to pull along multiple axes today and anyway you don’t want to resist.

“Moira-“

“Mmmmm?” She weaves long nails in your hair and tilts your head back to kiss along your collarbone. Heat floods your core and you’re grasping her hips and pulling her closer until the smooth cool metal of her belt cuts into your bare stomach.

Why speak? What even would you ask? For her to let you watch her do you in? To see the look on her face and the crease in her brow as she kisses you breathless? 

Not when you have her here like this, that would be a criminal waste and so you guide her mouth, currently kissing down your chest, up to yours and give over to the licentious thoughts that’ve been thorns in the side of reason these past too many months. 

You rip her shirt open and help her with your pants. 

You both stumble towards the bed, pushing off clothing and tripping over shoes. You pull her down onto you and she falls with grace, bringing a faint smell of cologne with her. She buries her head in your neck and runs a hand from your knee to your breast, rough and sure. Her other hand teases lower, scorching promises of wicked anticipation across your skin.

 _Not yet_ , you think, so wrap your legs around her waist before flipping positions. She lays breathing hard beneath you, a slight flush to her cheeks and… no, to her whole body. Her skin is so fair you can see where you’ve marked her already, and where you still have work to do. 

You grasp her wrists to pin above her head, and lean low to whisper the things you’ve dreamt of doing in her ear. She chuckles, rich tenor, and rubs a thigh between your legs, holding you captive with just the intoxicating murmur of her voice.

“What’s stopping you then?” she whispers into your hair, accent drawing out the vowels and if you were wet before it’s nothing to now. You push back, trying to memorize her every contour, but lust overwhelms the last of your self-control and you groan, throwing her legs over your shoulders to kiss at her folds. She moans then, not the affected, high and helpless cry women are taught represents desire, but a sound that is deep, open and carnal.

The noise spurs you on, and you lick and suck at her center like it’s the last thing you’ll ever taste. Her soft thighs involuntarily flex against the sides of your head and you revel in the feeling of Moira at your mercy. You sweep broad strokes across her clit and she arches off the bed, gently thrusting against your mouth with breathless cries of _more_ and _yes_ and _this is to my liking._

You cede the pull of your body to hers, and lose yourself in her scent and her sounds. Wet heat drips between your legs and you will get to that, yes, but for now you want to have all of her under and around you. You tease two fingers across the knife edge of her entrance and revel in the way her legs fall open and she again whispers _yes_. You comply, sinking in to the knuckles, ever ready to meet her standards. She helps you set a slow pace, teasing herself as much as you.

Just when you believe she won’t hold out much longer hands tangle in your hair and you feel her upward tug, insistent. You reluctantly abandon your work and kiss across her thigh, flicking your tongue against her jutting hip bone and ending above her, staring down in to eyes that burn with an intensity of passion and drive. She props herself up on her elbows and smiles.

“You know we start the new project tomorrow?”

“What?” You respond in a bleary-eyed haze, chin slick with her, the aching pulse between your own legs making her words slow to process. 

“We should be in the lab early. So much to do.”

You’ve suspected she’s devious, but this is too much.

“Moira what are you talking about? We have hours…” You lean in to kiss her silent but she pushes you back with a firm hand. 

“No, we’ve got to get up now. We’ve to to. Get. UP!”

Your eyes snap open to a bright white ceiling. You’re twisted in the sheets, and you’re alone. You let out a frustrated groan and press your palms to your eyes, recalling the dream sensations. You can still smell her cologne. You reach a hand beneath the covers and begin to finish what your subconscious started. The alarm clock reads 6:00 am and you’re back to work with her in that small lab in just two hours. You’re fucked.

* * *

Moira barely gets any sleep. _That’s fine,_ she tells herself _there’s always tonight._ She splashes water on her face for the bracing shock, but finds it does little for her condition. She studies the fine lines that have appeared at the corners of her mouth, and wonders at the possibility that she has smiled more in these past months than all of her previous two years. She’s pleased her research assistant agreed to stay on, more pleased than she would like to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyooooo. About time that Mature tag was justified. (Don't worry, there's more).


	6. The Exam

_Science will reveal the truth._

Nitrile gloves come in three sizes: too big, too small, and gigantic. You snap on a small pair and turn to Moira.

“It should go without saying but I’m going to be thorough.”

She snorts. “I should hope so.”

Upon your entry to the lab that morning Moira presented you with a detailed research schedule. She looked to have been up all night, the usual dark shadows under her eyes approaching an alarming shade of plum, but her enthusiasm for the cellular regeneration project was evident in her tone. This was not another stroll down the path of discovery; this was personal.

Today’s agenda is a re-evaluation of her marred arm, from ‘an outsider’s perspective’ for objectivity. The coming weeks would progress through analysis based on tissue samples, gene sequencing to search for anomalies, and eventually testing and refining the solution on the rabbits.

You glance at today’s checklist. “Athena, prepare to take dictation.”

The crystalline voice of the now-ubiquitous AI program echoes around the lab. 

_Dictation module is now running, you may begin when ready. Today’s date is XX.XX.XXXX._

The technology was made public a few years ago, but you wonder if it bothers Moira, reminders her of her time at Overwatch. 

“Subject?” Your threat of strict methodology was genuine. 

She rolls her eyes. “Moira Catherine O’Deorain.”

“Age?”

Stony. “44.”

“The following will be an examination of Dr. O’Deorain’s right hand and arm.” A step closer. “Dr. O’Deorain would you please rest your arm on the table.” Buttons and clips undone as if she does this every day, as if a scar is a scar is a scar, not a tattoo of ostracism. She folds the lab coat carefully and lays it over the back of a nearby chair. Wearing a black Oxford shirt and amethyst tie, she is ever the picture of composure. After a pause, she sits on a high lab stool and unbuttons the right cuff, rolling dark cotton up just past her elbow. 

You swallow, flashing back to this sight at your kitchen table. Her arm is even more deformed in the harsh exam light. It’s obvious why she hides it, but you wonder if there will be a day when she doesn’t have to. Perhaps that’s what you’re working towards together. You continue dictation.

“Preliminary visual inspection shows deep purple veins, nearly black, running along the back of the hand and up past the elbow. Comparison to my right arm suggests vein location is likely consistent with standard human anatomy. Discoloration of the skin: a light grayish blue - Athena make a note of the overhead light temperature in this room for later analysis. Skin appears smooth, hairless, and a little dry.”

You’re alone with her in the lab (as ever), and this is supposed to be a clinical examination. But the heat of this morning’s dream still prickles at your skin and hell, she’s been encouraging you to push boundaries since day one. That’s what you’ll tell yourself later, when doubts lap at the edges of today’s memory. A rabbit glares at you from across the lab, a judgmental appraisal if you’ve ever seen one. Or maybe it just hasn’t been fed today. Half removing a glove you gesture towards her forearm. “May I?”

She nods, shifting her weight slightly on the stool.

The discarded glove drops to the table like a fallen leaf, and makes as little sound. Your cautious finger pads extend towards her, grazing the veins on the back of her hand. Glancing touches over long slender fingers, lingering on her wrist. This isn’t on the checklist. “Contact with skin confirms dryness and… Dr. O’Deorain, are you cold?”

“It is a symptom of the transformation. The chill does not extend past the damage, and I have learned to live with discomfort. The body is incredible, it has adapted.” 

You measure skin temperature with an infrared thermometer, then continue up her arm, turning it over so the palm faces up. Pressing on a forearm vein to see the portion beyond the pressure lose some of its color, then releasing and watching the blood (is it blood?) rush back in, still black. “Blood flow appears to be normal.” Lifting her arm in both hands, turning it back over and studying the nails. All slowly, meticulously, delicately.

Moira’s eyes wander from your hands to your face and back. She wets her lips, and allows this to continue.

“Your nails, are they… acrylic?”

“Stronger, actually. But yes, they’re artificial if that’s what you’re after. Nothing grows on that side.”

“Tell me how this happened.”

A sigh. Is she tired of repeating the story, to herself? “Two years ago I was on the brink of a great discovery. No one had yet been able to regenerate damaged tissue, but we were succeeding where others had failed. I worked… I worked alongside Dr. Angela Ziegler. You know her as Overwatch’s Mercy.”

She says this too quickly, with a forced ease. Forced for your benefit, or perhaps for the recording. You admire her adherence to protocol because that’s what the situation requires, whatever it costs her. 

“We researched in parallel: pursuing our own methods but sharing discoveries. The way her mind worked,” she smiles softly and shakes her head, “brilliant. I could see we were close to a breakthrough but I needed to conduct trials on human subjects. She didn’t think we were ready, but further animal experimentation would have been a waste of valuable time and resources. Overwatch had immense public support and we were winning the war. We had to press our advantage.”

The next words tumble out, unbidden, as if she’s ripping off a bandage and pulling the scab with it. 

“I went behind her back and presented our case to the ethics board for approval. They turned me down, and initiated an investigation into the project. This was dangerous, the fools didn’t understand what we were trying to do. If they found Angela’s half-completed experiments there was easily room for misinterpretation. You’re no doubt familiar with her end result, the incredible _Mercy_.” She spits out the word. “Mercy is for the weak, and the ignorant public has no idea of the complications and risks she faced in her research."

"We needed results quickly, and I was confident in my work. Our work. She was careful and didn’t often make mistakes. I can overlook a digit in calculation of theory but it all comes out in experimentation anyhow so why bother? The next day I waited until she left to get coffee and injected myself with the trial mixture. Obviously there was a flaw in my approach. That overlooked digit turned out to be the formula for decay rather than regeneration.”

She flexes her fingers defiantly; warped, snaking veins contrasted boldly against her pale skin and the dark laminate table top.

You’re stunned. You know she’s reckless, and proud, but an error of this magnitude… you despise the phrase ‘only human’.

“The pain was unbearable, like hellfire. I must’ve passed out, as I opened my eyes to find Angela screaming and calling for help. They took me away, put me under constant supervision. Not in a medical ward, but a prison cell. I had no visitors. She _hated_ me. Hates me. As they carried me away she shrieked about throwing it all away for personal gain. She didn’t understand! The work is beauty in itself, and the truths it would reveal could benefit both our goals… they denied my request to speak to her that day, and afterward I’m sure they intercepted the few communications I sent, trying to explain. I never received a reply at least. I don’t regret what I did but… she shouldn’t have had to pay for my miscalculations."

"Morrison wanted to put me on trial. A public crucifixion to distance Overwatch from my _unacceptable_ ideals.” She snorts derisively. “In the end Amari must’ve convinced him not to, no doubt for political reasons. They kicked me out quietly after a rushed court-martial and distributed a pathetic, public condemnation of my work. Angela must’ve written it, it reeked of morality and they had her under their thumb then; as the youngest department head Morrison knew how badly she wanted to prove herself. God help her if she missed an opportunity to _do the right thing_ ," she finishes, voice dripping with contempt.

She’s strayed. This isn’t relevant to the recording, you’re not even sure if what she’s telling you is unclassified.

“They sent me home after 12 hours in that cell. No one knew the side effects of what I’d done, and I suppose they didn’t want to keep me around to find out. Plausible deniability. Because this is for the record,” she tilts her head towards one of the microphone units mounted in the room, “I coughed up blood for six days. On the seventh I couldn’t get out of bed for weakness, and had acute paralysis of my right shoulder and arm.” She brings her chin back down to gaze between her fingers. Her back is straight but her voice is quiet, as if meant just for you, though the recording will still pick up at this range. “I slept, and wondered if death would be better. I had followed my curiosity, and what I know to be right. If only for a small error I could’ve been back in the lab advancing our work. I had been impetuous. So I would endure even this."

"On the morning of the eighth day I could feel a tingling in my upper arm, and within hours I regained mobility in my fingers. Ultimately the progression of the solution was arrested in my shoulder. I am uncertain if that was biology’s defenses or merely a result of the volume of liquid I injected. It’s possible a larger dose would have consequences that spread further. Only more trials will tell,” she finishes, optimistically.

You don’t know what to say. You already knew from her published papers she’d been working on healthy tissue regeneration. The tone of the release Overwatch put out didn’t fit with her known research, but you never imagined she had suffered all that. Your keen analytical mind is what landed you a spot in this lab, but today you wish you could shut it off so you wouldn’t have to know everything she thinks she didn’t say. The pain of losing contact with Angela, another variable overlooked in calculation. You want to tell her she was right to act, and to scream at her for her carelessness. 

What you finally manage is “Then I will need to examine your shoulder.”

Moira is slow, deliberate. She begins by standing, loosening the crisp knot in her tie. Pulls with her unmarked hand letting the silk slide through the knot, a whisper in the slanting examination light. Once unraveled, she strolls back to drape the tie on the chair, over her lab coat. She turns back toward you and flicks open the top shirt button. An act that would give most people relief appears not to affect her. She proceeds methodically down the line, each button unfastened with a practiced hand. You’re staring, drawn to her by a pull that overrides reason. You’d have a terrible bedside manner. You look away then back to apologize but find her gaze direct on you, curious, so you swallow down the sorry and become fascinated by today’s exam checklist.

“Ready,” she states.

She’s seated, right sleeve hanging limp at her side, veined arm once again displayed on the table top. The rest of the shirt is half on, still tucked into her belt. Like a soldier home from battle, injured arm free of it’s sling. Smooth pale skin almost white in the overhead light. She’s revealed a delicate cream camisole under her shirt. No bra. It’s the contrast that freezes you— the starched severity of her clothes and the half-naked torso, the genius geneticist who is a woman you speak with by name. She leans forward until bright light kisses the delicate lines of her neck, trailing down to disappear in the gentle cleft between soft breasts. Your breath hitches and you pray she doesn’t notice. It’s like she’s doing this on purpose. How could she be? Are you _both_ taking advantage of the situation? 

You stare, but for a second, then clear your throat and begin tracing the newly-revealed paths with a pen light pulled from the pocket of your lab coat.

“Affected vasculature extends past elbow and appears to terminate beyond shoulder—“

Your fingers accidentally skim across her collarbone, sharp and smooth in the cold exam light, and her breath skips like a record. 

“I’m sorry I - “

“It’s fine.” She adjusts the loose half of her shirt closer around her.

She faintly shivers as you resume the examination. You wonder when the last time someone touched her was. If she allows someone to touch her now. Or if like you she lies awake in bed, closing her eyes to the darkness and imagining her hand as someone else’s. 

_Focus._

“How does the body handle the transition?” You’re as much asking as thinking out loud.

“Apparently it does, is the short answer. I’ve had several aborted biopsy attempts; that area is surprisingly difficult to reach one-handed, and the self-suturing is quite difficult as well. There’s a stimulated emission depletion microscopy* probe available upstairs, which as you know would allow for structural mapping down to the nanometer level, but it requires an operator and a specific mathematical modeling for custom contrast dyes. I can’t do it alone. You’ll help me with that later today. After pursuing all other available experimental options I tried to bleed out a transition point as a last resort, but the results were inconsequential. The damage appears to be to the tissue and not my blood. A small comfort, but we should confirm it.”

The implications of her isolation terrify you. Undaunted, she sliced herself open out of curiosity. No not quite, out of a desire for and duty to truth. The thought of her alone in the lab, bleeding out, paralyzes you. Shaken, you revert to the checklist. 

“We… need to take blood? Moira, no. I’m a doctor in title, not training. I don’t want,” _to damage you,_ you think. _No more than you already have done to yourself_. “To get it wrong,” you finish lamely.

But she will not be deterred. A current blood sample is critical for data analysis. She’s done it dozens of times, on herself. She will walk you through it, and assures you it’s fast and simple. The hardest part is finding a vein and in her case… well.

She directs you to her store of sterile goods ‘for these type of experiments’ and chooses a large ropey vein along her inner forearm while you triple check the tray of equipment. Tourniquet, alcohol swab, cotton, needle and collection vial. You reluctantly pull on new gloves and take a deep breath. 

“Hesitation is born of fear, and fear is the enemy of truth. I was under the impression I’d hired a scientist. Don’t make me regret this.” Despite her lofty tone, a note of humor hides in Moira’s voice. She’s… playing with you. You feel a wave of warm relief lubricate your stiff posture, and immediately the tension in your stance lessens. She’s trying to calm you down, for both your sakes.

You remember who you are away from her presence. The woman who graduated top of her class, and was the youngest recipient ever of the Hutton-Jennings Prize in Experimental Physics. You’re capable of extreme concentration and moments of calm under pressure. Moira is an unsettling force, and you a boat pitched on her waves, but if you’re to work together than you need to grab oars and row.

You tie the tourniquet around her upper arm in one fluid motion. Two can play this game, and your favorite weapon is dark humor. You adopt a silky bravura; an affected air of practiced ease with a touch of annoyance.

“All you have to regret is not consulting my expertise earlier O’Deorain. Why didn’t you call straight away? My schedule is extremely full, but my secretary is efficient and given your prestige she surely would have bumped you to the top of the list.”

Deft fingers pull an alcohol swab from the package and you clean the site.

“As it stands now, with my vast medical knowledge and international contacts, I should have this puzzle sorted out in no time.”

Your stomach churns as you grasp the needle firmly and position it above the vein, but you betray no unease as you stabilize the skin with your left thumb and forefinger and insert the tip fluidly at the precise angle she showed you. Wine-dark blood spurts into the vial, and she gives no signs of discomfort.

“In fact, if we’re to do the thing properly, my medical recommendation is to amputate the arm so I can ship it to my main facility for testing.” You snap the tourniquet off her bicep, and the blood flows freer. “If you think I’m good with a needle just wait until you’ve seen my surgical skill. At med school my nickname was ‘Bone Saw’.”

You chance a glance at her then, fingers still steady on the vial. The ghost of a smile plays across her lips, and your stomach turns over for an entirely different reason than before. You look back down to see the vial is nearly full. The cotton is close at hand, and you slide the needle out while applying pressure with the cotton. She takes over almost immediately, instinctually, and you again realize how difficult this would be alone.

“Would that those former classmates could see you now,” she jests, gesturing to the basement walls. “State-of-the-art facilities in a penthouse suite. They’d writhe with jealousy.”

You cap the needle and label the vial before facing her, a grace in your movements and flow to your words, every trace of mocking replaced by the solid warm weight of sincerity.

“They should. There’s nowhere I’d rather be, Moira.”

You hold her gaze without fear. A challenge and a question, telling her you mean it and willing her to not let this moment fall flat, letting her know she doesn’t have to wear a mask with you, ever. It’s a risk, but a calculated one after her visit yesterday. You couldn’t have predicted finding purpose as clean and bright as working beside her, knowing her. At a time in your life when you expected nothing but professional acquaintances and routine (if still cutting edge) projects, she threw your expectations to chaos.

She lifts the cotton to check the puncture, watches as a tiny read bead of her blood forms then threatens to fall.

“Thank you.” It’s a curse and a benediction in the same breath, and you feel the shift it signifies.

~~~

Later, when you play back the recording, you hear the tiny fluctuations in her voice that indicate strain. Her dismissal from Overwatch, her break with Dr. Zeigler, the demeaning conditions of her employment now - all prices she paid to continue her work. You want to ease her burden, but you know that’s not right, she would never consent. Pride for her is earned, and not relinquished easily.

* * *

Moira dressed that morning knowing what the day held, and decided she would alter nothing. A shirt and tie would be a hindrance to the exam, but better to accept this minor inconvenience than admit the slight nausea in her stomach. For fear of exposing her secrets or excitement at possibility, she didn’t know. Her research partner, _colleague_ she corrected herself, occupied her thoughts more than to be expected lately. A curiosity rooted in her mind she acknowledged, the woman was talented and clever. A curiosity rooted lower in her body she pointedly ignored. That kind of thinking about a colleague only leads to ruin, as she knew well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6 aka The One In Which Moira gives a Stoic Striptease and You Make a Joke
> 
> * [Stimulated Emission Detection Microscopy](https://www.pnas.org/content/105/9/3298)  
> So I've decided that by 20XX when this story is taking place this entire setup has been scaled down to a portable unit with a probe that can be inserted into things, biological things, and spit out data. So it will be used to map the structure of Moira's veins and see how the damage was done.


	7. The Break

Sequencing and reprogramming rabbit genes taught you the fundamentals of cellular manipulation. With blood and tissue samples from Moira you first map her genes, discovering she has no hereditary diseases or abnormalities. 

“Of course not,” she says, matter-of-fact. “Not anymore.” _Of course not._ She’d cured herself of any errors in her code one by one, a side hobby these past years when she’d get stuck during experimentation. You ask why she hasn’t opened a gene therapy clinic and made millions; she says it was all provincial work, what she really wanted to do was create what you two had with the rabbit: a perpetually-correcting system to rewrite any errors in DNA back to an original, ‘perfect’ sequence. Even that seems to have been an ancillary project for her. Now her focus is developing a counterpoint to the solution that damaged her arm - something that can restore life to injured tissue.

Thank god you have a physics background. Matter cannot be drawn from thin air. Creation of new tissue requires energy, so you research liquid thermal fuels that when activated will follow the genetic protocol programmed into Moira’s solution, regenerating cellular structure. 

Her drive is infectious. You’ve worked hard before but this level of mental and physical fatigue is new, and you love it like a drug.

Afternoon melts into evening and the lab is as ever, unconscious rabbits in cages and samples resting in temperature-controlled microfridges on benches. Needles of exhaustion prick at your eyes, but varying degrees of sleeplessness are familiar companions at this point so you brush it off and try to refocus the numbers on the screen in front of you. Moira shifts her weight across the lab bench to your right. She seems occupied with a calculation, but you know she’s waiting for your samples to finish resting so you both can continue the latest round of trials. Weariness doesn’t ever seem to touch her.

Progress has been made on the project, though not smoothly. Six steps forward for every five back you’d guess, as the regular two-to-one ratio would be far too generous here. You must keep pushing forward.

You get up to check a chemical label, but halfway to the shelf forget which one and turn around. On the way back to your bench you stumble. It’s a quick thing, and you aren’t ready for it. A hand darts out and over your shoulder before you can even register it. You swear no one could move that fast— it’s like she disappeared and reappeared at your side. Huh. That’s impossible though, you’re just slower than time right now. That makes sense. You dimly search the room for a clock.

Moira angles your body toward hers and takes your chin in hand _(cool palm sliding against your jaw)_ slowly turning your head to each side. Her eyes scan your face, swiftly down and back up, analyzing, searching and narrowing when she finds fault. 

“Your pupil diameter is unstable and _(two calloused fingers move to your throat, you impulsively grasp at her wrist, though as a choking reflex or to keep her hands on you you’re not sure)_ your pulse is too fast.” Her accent is thick, she must be angry. 

“Is ceann de’s an h-óinseacha diabhail thú!* Lie down.”

You try to protest but now that she’s supporting you your muscles slacken from a rising tide of weariness. Her hand is still tight on your bicep and the other has woven around your waist to guide you forward. The rogue element of your brain flashes sense-images of pulling her arms tighter around you, asking her for things no man or woman has ever been able to give you. Later you’ll be grateful this semiconscious state preventing you from acting on that. You do lean further into her, letting your head loll into her shoulder and she adjusts, folding your weight into hers. She smells like breath mints over coffee and beneath it a scent entirely her own. You feel giddy independent of your tiredness.

She supports you to the long couch in her office and presses down on your shoulders, cursing the both of you. On an intuitive level you’re still resisting. You’re surprised by her unaffected concern. How did you and she get this tangled together? You’re just a glorified lab assistant, right? Any further thoughts flee as she throws one of her long, tailored lab coats over your supine self. Her barked order of “Sleep!” is wholly unnecessary.

~~~

Darkness. Starkness. Whistle in the wind, everything ends. Coffee.  
You smell coffee.

Something pokes you in the neck, and for one wild second you imagine unceremonious death at the hands of a madman with a knife. You jerk up, determined to go down fighting. 

“You’re in my office. Remember.”

Low light, but definitely not a shady back alley. Disheveled red hair burns under lamp glow as she types at her desk a few feet away. Oh. Fuck. Right. Memories of your collapse flash through your mind. Sheepish, you fall back into the couch. The ‘knife’ is a plastic corner of her security badge attached to the lapel of your blanket. 

“This is why you’re always getting locked out of Level 3 Hazard zones,” you tease, flicking the edge of the badge clipped to the coat she’s not wearing.

“Hmmmm,” she doesn’t look up.

This is not a moment for levity, of course. You force down the bile of shame and pitch forward to cradle a sweaty forehead in your hands.

“God Moira I’m so sorry. We’ve made so much progress. I didn’t want to fall behind schedule any more than we already have.” Last night’s sequence of events replays in your mind, like program code compiling. “The samples! Were they injected?”

She finally looks up.

“No, but there’s time enough yet. Like you… I’m not immortal.”

You realize she must’ve slept here, and with you on the couch the only half-decent place would’ve been her desk chair. Beneath her current lab coat you can see the edges of the spare shirt and tie you know she keeps in the closet. Yesterday’s clothes peek from the corner of her briefcase. Her hair is sticking up in the back. She’s always so meticulous about her appearance. Another wave of guilt washes through you and you cringe. 

She sips at a takeout cup of coffee. “I want results too you know. But you’re no good to us in a state like that.”

You know, and it stings. Also, _us_. A thought to unpack later. 

“Eat.” She gestures to a second cup of coffee and breakfast sandwiches from the 24-hour cafe in the next building over. 

You slide your shoes on realizing she must’ve taken them off. A small blush. Another debt. You eat, and she returns to typing.

The matte click of long nails on keys persists for a time, then falls away. She lowers her eyes from the screen, rubbing her temples and jostling loose a few more fine hairs to descend and tickle her cheeks. She’s clearly spent. A new sight.

“Moira, do you ever think about taking a vacation?”

“No, wherever would I go?”

“Oh I don’t know … _out_? I hear there’s a beautiful lake on the other side of town. Have you ever been that far?” 

She rolls her eyes.

“There are many geographically fascinating places to visit, but to what end? When others say they want ‘a vacation’ what they mean is that they want relief from responsibility. They want to drink to oblivion on the hot sands of some godforsaken tourist town then stumble into the arms of another idiot and fuck until they pass out, making memories that won’t be recorded because the alcohol has rendered their hippocampus inert.“

You're laughing. “Well when you put it that way…”

“I find what I need here. There is enough in the lab to keep me occupied.”

You can’t respond, too struck by her tone. As if she’s resigned herself to this basement and its limited equipment; as if ‘occupied’ is a fair substitute for purpose.

“Though perhaps if I did go _out_ , as you put it, I would like to experience greatness. The sight of an achievement, of what man is capable of when at one with nature.”

She never fails to surprise you, calling on emotions you’d felt and filed away because you could find no one to share them. _Yes,_ you think, _I know_.

“I understand. I’d like you to see that. I’d like to see it too.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin. Everyone else is content with idle pleasures.”

“Not everyone.”

* * *

In the dark dead space between night and dawn Moira watches her colleague resting on the couch, dim form rising and falling with every breath. _That could’ve been worse. Am I pushing her too hard? She pushes herself, I can’t stop it. Besides, who am I to talk?_ Moira lingers a second longer, eyes trailing up her leg where it lays outside the lab coat, tight pants hugging toned muscles beneath. She turns away.

Moira slumps down at her desk and closes her eyes as fingers slide to her temples, pressing spots of light into existence before they fade into the periphery. Fainter and more familiar than the harsh lamp to her side. Many frustrated nights have been spent in a similar position. Suddenly she feels a rising ache in her chest and her head falls forward into her hands. _Don’t_ , she thinks, but there is no one to see. 

She slips down further, feeling the press of her breasts against the desk and the glide of her thighs together as she shifts faintly in the chair. She feels the longing in her muscles, in the nerves of her body. _Is that what you want?_ she thinks, _Is it as simple as that?_ but knows it is not that simple. She’s sought out encounters in the past, quick things to ease the need when it grew too strong, a habit of biology she can’t break herself of. But she’s always felt an incorruptible link between her body and her work, as if one completes the other—and her desire would never be satisfied until the two were united.

She shakes her head slowly in denial. Her own vision of life, what it could be; these brief glimpses in rare moments were all she would ever have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *You are one of the Devil’s fools.


	8. The Ideal

In the calm before any storm it is said that prophets can read the stars. You are no prophet, though in the weeks since your collapse there has been a thing unspoken between you and Moira that you suspect is fast approaching a threshold. She is no longer cold with you, and you’re uncertain what to do with this newfound familiarity. You tread lightly in her presence, afraid to upset the balance.

The project is advancing, slow but sure. Tissue samples confirmed her hypothesis that the damage was to her veins, and with a probe you mapped the vascular structure from initial injection point to the transition area in her shoulder. She wore a white camisole that day, trimmed with lace, and your fingers again lingered longer on her skin than clinically necessary. That time she didn’t shiver.

Moira is dismissive when you bring up additional funding, but her equipment is outdated and given the positive results of the latest simulations you believe it's high time to submit a proposal for a budget increase from the institution. So when you see the back of Dr. Han’s profile in the hallway one morning you consider stopping him to ask for professional advice. Before you can get his attention he veers into a break room. You freeze outside the door when you hear him speak.

“O’Deorain! How are you?”

“Han.” She responds with a stiff formality you’re unaccustomed to hearing. It doesn’t suit her. As if her usual swagger has been paved over with reservations. 

You feel like you’re intruding on something personal, though this is a common break room. Her voice is different. Clipped not in the professional way she uses with you. Used to use with you. Guarded.

“Planning to steal any more of my promising minds?”

“I can’t help it if she sees more opportunity with me than you.”

“Opportunity! Hah! They should put you under ethics review for ruining a postdoc’s career. I can’t believe they’re still paying you to squat here.”

“I’m not dead yet.” A fine thread of tension in her voice, a warning tone that Han doesn’t hear.

“What are you working on down there in your dungeon anyway? A death ray?” He laughs at his own joke.

“What a fascinating proposition.” Her voice drips with sarcasm. “Good day, Han.”

You hear footsteps approaching and immediately speed walk in the opposite direction, turning a corner before she can glimpse you. 

When you do enter the lab (five minutes late) there is a paper cup of coffee sitting on the edge of your bench. You recognize the familiar blue and purple pattern of the bulk-purchased cups available in all the institution’s break rooms. She took the time to make you coffee even while Han ridiculed her and your heart twists.

She’s already at her bench, spine straight and eyes dead ahead into her laptop screen. You give as heartfelt a 'thank you' as you can to her back, then turn away so she won’t see the mixture of fury and anguish on your face and mistake it for being directed at her.

You realize how badly she wants to work, to put up with that. The purpose of this project takes on new meaning, and you work through lunch.

~~~

Your research together has been fruitful, but she is quick to accept the results from a single experiment without repeated tests for confirmation.

“I have confidence my work.” She says simply when you question her sparse methods, and turns a deaf ear to your arguments for statistics and reproducibility. You wonder how she ever published anything, since no journal would accept results where a test was run only once.

Spurred on as much by her stubbornness as by your infuriation with Dr. Han’s naked contempt for Moira, you resolve to ignore her dubious judgement and conduct the meticulous extra trials required in order to submit results for publication. As the day’s work wraps up you leave for dinner with a gentle wave and warm 'goodnight!' 

You know she stays some evenings as late as 10 p.m., so you wait until 10:30 before carding yourself back through the security door and rallying for the long hours ahead. Repetition of Phase 1’s experiments will bolster the data and ensure the last month’s breakthroughs are indeed unprecedented, not potential anomalies easily dismissed by a review committee.

The lab is different, deprived of Moira. She brings a static charge to the place that is especially evident in its absence, though you feel you can actually work more efficiently without her there. You fall into an easy rhythm, a mandala of microscopy and contrast dyes and computational analysis. 

You’re staring at the screen, watching graphs render in real time. It was a good idea to work at her desk instead of yours. She always leaves her office unlocked, and her computer’s larger processor means you’ll know immediately if the results are valid and won’t waste valuable time analyzing corrupted data. This round is progressing nicely and you’re watching intently for any anomalies, so you don’t notice when the outer lab lights switch on.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She cuts an imposing figure in the doorway to her office, harsh bright light from the lab filtering past her grey felted overcoat, collar high. 

You’re caught, too bad. You didn’t want her to worry, wanted this to be a surprise. 

You smile, “How did you know I was here?” But her face is harsh, half hidden in shadow.

“Lab entry notification,” she says simply. And then quieter, with a steel edge, “I should never have trusted you.”

You hear hollow resignation and the stillness of loss in her voice masked well under a layer of scorn and suddenly realize how this looks: Moira receives a late-night notification of entry to her lab, a likely break in. She rushes to catch the culprit, only to find you hunched over her computer, memory stick in hand. To all appearances as guilty as a thief in the night, her betrayer.

“No! This isn’t…” _what it looks like?_ God that’s so trite. You step back from her desk, hands open at your sides. Offering yourself to her for judgement. A picture of surrender and, you hope, placation. You don’t want to do any further damage.

“Please, I would never… come over here and see. This is new data, and it’s promising. I’m repeating last week’s trials with precise documentation of the n- and p-values to three significant figures. I didn’t want to bother you with this, it’s rote work but I want us to have the highest integrity data possible to shorten the review process for publication.”

She hesitates, then steps further into her office and your eyes adjust. Through the open folds of her coat you can see she’s wearing a white button down haphazardly tucked into khaki slacks, and your heart twists at the thought of her jumping from bed to dress hurriedly, panicked at the possibility of her life’s work under threat. When she speaks her voice has lost some of its bite, but she’s guarded and distant still.

“Don’t bother. I know it works. We need waste no time over something so banal as redundancy. Besides, we’re ready to move on to the next phase. Go home now, we’ll begin tomorrow.”

The woman is goddamn infuriating. “What are you talking about? We can’t move on after a single round of experimentation! If we cut the trials short now then we’ll never be able to publish! Then this is all for… what? What are we doing here Moira?”

“Science. The truth is rarely simple but always pure. Publishing is a diversion for idiots like Han who can’t see past the end of their career. Truth cannot be peer-reviewed.”

“That’s our ultimate aim? _Pursuing truth_ with outdated equipment in a basement lab of an institution that doesn’t appreciate your worth? Are you waiting for greatness to find you in your grave? Publication is our way out of here!”

That’s hit a nerve, and you let the silence expand as her tongue works the inside of her cheek. She’s not one for violence you think (you hope), but her next words expose a predilection far more dangerous than physical confrontation. It seems she would prefer the cold twisting of a poison tailored to her victim’s precise fragilities. You realize she wields the power of destruction just as adeptly as that of creation.

“Of course,” she sneers, baring her teeth, “your career. I am but a stepping stone on your path to success. Ask and you’ll have a recommendation for future employment immediately. I’ve no interest holding you down with my meager offerings when you’ve the whole world to conquer.“

You want to slap her. You think you know the origin of this, a contemptuous colleague’s flippant gibes pierced deep. You can’t believe she thinks you that shallow, that Han could twist her opinion of you. You lose the struggle to keep anger out of your voice. 

“I could’ve worked with Dr. Han, yes. His team, TEAM! publishes every six months. There’s only two of us so you damn well know I’m not here for the glory. I don’t fucking care how many citations I can get. If you want to stay here forever, unlisted on the directory, playing catch-and-release with new theories, then be my guest.”

“Fuck off.”

But you’ve been here with her before, and this time things are different. You’re not backing down. For all her arrogance she can be painfully passive about her worth. How could she not know? You told her. You told her more than you should’ve, that she’s a pull you can’t escape and wouldn’t want to. Well, not exactly that. But you did tell her she’s too good for this place. And that she’s beautiful. Two obvious facts that had nothing to do with personal feelings. At the time.

When you were young, you imagined the world to be filled with people like her, people for whom dreams were the beginnings of achievement and the only obstacle was the time it would take to reach that achievement. In grad school and since, you hoped to work alongside them but found only vultures scavenging for prestige, or others simply content with passing the time as directed by their superiors, their superiors directing as guided by the mandate of the organization. Moira’s existence is an ember atop a pile of ash, and you desperately want to keep her burning. But damn if she isn’t making you fight for it every step of the way.

You give her a scathing look. “You’re better than this Moira. I came here chasing the highest ideal. Now I’m watching it fade like a mirage.” 

Without slapping her you’ve still brought off the effect. She’s angry. Angry and… stunned. Well you won’t take it back. She makes a fleeting movement, as if to step forward, opening her mouth to speak, then closing it, wrestling within herself between emotions. She chooses one. 

“Unbelievable,” she huffs, stuffing hands into coat pockets and stalking out the door.

Still standing, seething, you stoop to view her computer despite not taking in the meaning of anything on screen. After a minute you hear her re-enter the room. You’re not ready to continue the fight yet, so you keep your head down with the pretense of cataloging this round of data. The next thing you’re aware of is her presence behind you. You turn, startled, and she’s too close. You can see her face, and with the clarity of undivided perception, the meaning of the expression on her face. You realize what she’s going to do a second before she moves.

“Damn you,” she breathes. And kisses you fast and sure. Then again, longer. A dozen comebacks die on your tongue as she has her way with hers. One thin finger traces up your jaw to bring your mouth deeper against hers and she groans, an involuntary sound of relief torn from her throat. You let her take her time, savoring the sensation, committing the reality of this moment to memory. Her lips are soft and she tastes faintly of red wine, echoes of tannins whispering across your tastebuds. 

This is a thing set in motion months ago, at the gala and cultivated since. In non-touches and glances and words left unsaid. You were wrong, you think, she _is_ capable of physical violence but this, this is a fierce bliss you’d sacrifice yourself to a thousand times over. She is rough, claiming you with force and fury, frenzied in her movements and bruising in her touch. But so are you. The both of you straining not to let this moment fall away, taking what you’ve dreamt of for months, what is rightfully yours. 

You push her coat open and off her shoulders, desperation driving you to undress her completely, see her bare before you body and soul; sear her worth into her skin until she’s branded in a way she won’t again forget. She lets it fall to the floor and retaliates by pulling your shirt off, and you’ve never been touched like this, like she owns you, and you know she does. At one particularly strong tug on your belt you stumble, and she catches you, falls into you, neither of you willing to let go. The back of your legs hit the desk and she breaks the kiss, resting for an instant, her forehead lingering on yours.

A compressor kicks on somewhere in the lab, and you both breathe heavy into the low white hum of a modern silence. A storm of potential swirls at the periphery but you anchor each other in the center, resting in momentary calm. She tilts her head up and you follow, gazing into those eyes. The right a deep crimson and the left a steel blue, each independent and innocent of the other, formidable in their own right, fire and ice. Flecks of yellow perfect both irises. You see everything you saw before and for the first time perhaps everything as it appears to her: Beauty in the intricacy of human potential, with pure truth at the center. Chaos melting in to order into chaos into -

Her gaze retreats inward, and she brushes the back of a knuckle over your forearm. Opening herself to you for judgement, offering no defense. A question. She doubts? The question is unspoken but from the moment of your first meeting you’ve known the answer. You laugh. Clear and sparkling it breaks the silence. You’ve known your answer to this question your whole life, and have only been looking for someone to ask it. Someone worthy.

The ‘yes’ is woven into the way you wrap your hands in her shirt, the way you take her mouth against yours, pressing her toward and down onto the couch before settling atop her thighs. The way you deliberately flick open each of her buttons to punctuate your joy. You edge kisses across her collarbone while swift hands push off her shirts and twist in her hair, earning you a surprised hum that slides into a moan as you move lower.

She groans and gasps against your ear as you claim her in fistfuls and mouthfuls, strong pulls pulling both of you down.

Her fingers hover at your side and you lean back, confused, before you realize you’re witnessing what few likely have: Moira O’Deorain on the edge of losing control. Her breathing’s gone shallow and her jaw is set, bare skin electric with the strain of self-restraint, cultivated decorum crumbling by choice and by nature. The flush creeping up her neck, half-lidded eyes fighting to focus. You’ve never seen her more beautiful.

You kiss her slowly then, walking the edge. She bites gently around your lip, a quick tug that is not enough, and shudders. She’s holding back and you want to plead with her that she doesn’t have to. Her hands grasp to catch at your waist, and you roll your hips along her, deliberately drawn out and pressing her _down_ in ways that leave no room for misinterpretation. You’ve discovered her breaking point, and toppled her over the brink. 

The cry that escapes her throat is need and desire and longing finally allowed release, and the hand that pulls you roughly to her a demand that will not be denied. You submit to her touch, dragging off remaining clothing until you’re both stripped; you’re beginning to sweat, the heat of your bodies too close but neither of you willing to pull back for relief. 

An entirely different dampness born of need causes you to slide an inch down her thigh. Your fingers flick over her peaked nipples and she moans. Low and guttural.

She grabs your waist with her right hand and you thrill at her perpetually-cool fingertips. She flips you lengthwise onto the couch and in the same movement is on you, inside and around you and this is what your body is for, you think, an entire being designed for the single purpose of pleasure. Her nails leave marks you will delight to retrace tomorrow.

She unmakes you touch by touch and this is nothing like you dreamt. This is the woman who didn’t flinch with a 4-inch steel probe deep in her shoulder; now gasping against yours. Her fingers tight within you, each thrust of her hips driving them a fraction deeper. 

You want to tell her to slow down, that this moment is a justification of perception and belief slipping through your fingers like sand, but she’s set a pace rushing you towards the edge and you can’t do more than hold on and hold out as long as possible.

You break, and she rides you through it. 

When you can see again it’s her above you and nothing else. Her pupils are dark and feral, still, and you’ve had nowhere near enough of her. You guide her hand from inside you and in one pitching motion lay her back against the couch, her husky sigh all the sanction you need to penetrate her core. She arches her spine, messy red hair pressed into the cushions and breasts angling up, the curve of her thin waist rolling to meet each of your thrusts. Her nerves are sensitive, keyed up and raw from the swing in emotions over the past hour, and your fingers have found a mark she enjoys specifically, if these shameless sounds she’s making are any indication. You bend down to taste her, and are nearly overwhelmed. She’s damp, loamy and warm and from the way her soft sighs of encouragement build to accented curses you can tell she’s aching for release. So after several more searing minutes when you press your tongue above your curling fingers her hands fist in your hair and she cries out, clenching around you.

Her naked thigh is satin sliding against your cheek.

Coming down from her high, she pulls you from between her legs to sweep your lips with one long finger, licking it to taste herself. She smiles wickedly, and that in itself starts you all over again - you reach down to pleasure her a second time but she catches your wrist, all traces of mischief gone from her expression.

“No wait-“ Her voice is hoarse and… sincere?

“We… would benefit from more room and I… I don’t do this lightly. Come with me. Stay. I live on the edge of campus. I want you there.”

Her voice cracks but her gaze is steady. You read a slight glimmer of hope in her features, and wonder if it’s what’s making your stomach clench even more than how she touched you: the thrill of finding a spirit that mirrors her own.

And for now you don’t care about the extra trials to publish, or proper closing procedures. You dress quickly with glances towards her between layers, unsure if you misheard, not giving her the time to change her mind.

She does the same. A lingering heat between the two of you remains as you leave the lab, building again with the walk across the common areas and down the winding sidewalk that travels away from the institute's research facilities. She leads a half-pace ahead, and you study her from the side. A shadow in the starlight, lips parted slightly to pull in the midnight air. She looks at you once, and you see in her eyes what you feel in your chest, and your lips, and the swollen beating ache between your legs. She does not look at you again. 

On the edge of campus there is a grove of oak trees and she brings you behind them to a small cabin obscured by overgrown branches. Tomorrow she will tell you the roof leaks and the building had been scheduled for demolition. They gave it to her for living quarters as an insult rather than a right, but she made it her own and tonight it’s all you and she will need.

As soon as the door seals you both into the mute walls of her home you’re on her. Lips capturing hers, deep and hot and unrelenting as your hands untuck her shirt, desperate to reach the smooth skin you have the sense-memory of feeling for the first time and want to explore again. 

She makes a low sound of mocking at your eagerness but shows little restraint herself, sliding hands beneath your waistband and walking you backwards to her bedroom. You can’t see in the darkness but she leads and you trust. 

This time it’s slow. Thorough. Kisses last until you break, breathless, and begin again, possessive. She crawls over you and slides a thigh between yours, pressing hands into the sheets on either side of your head, languidly lowering herself onto you in a tortuously slow, rolling embrace. Your bodies move against one another in swelling rhythm, a dance as sinful as it is pure. She builds on the heat from before and works you raw, returning again and again with her mouth and her fingers, whispering accented promises of ecstasy into your skin until you’re moaning her name into the sheets and one orgasm follows another.

You repay her in kind, learning she likes to be fucked hard and comes hardest when you go down on her and she can control the pace, grabbing your head and guiding you against her until she comes with a shout, and a mumbled ‘thank you’ after. 

Even after you’re both spent, gasping into the darkness, you fight to stay conscious not to lose the golden thread of this night. Crawling up to kneel above her you set out to map her entire body. Small breasts flow into the smooth plane of her stomach giving over to flared hips that taper into pale white thighs disappearing beneath your own. You run your palms over all of her, rough, avaricious and she moans again, a sound you now know well but can’t tire of hearing, the result of over-sensitivity from hours of stimulation. 

“Moira…” you invoke her name like a prayer, kissing a winding route up her neck before lazily catching your teeth across her defined jaw and brushing swollen lips over her thin mouth. She tastes of you and you of her, intermingling desires.

She stills you with a gentle touch and you rise to meet her expression, a mirthless smile.

“This is dangerous.”

You’re not naive. She means the danger in wanting a thing too much, in letting it consume like fire and burn what you’ve built to ash.

“Yes,” you breathe, “it is.” You resume painting her with kisses, now to the hairline behind her ear, inhaling her shampoo and styling paste, a sharp blend of citrus and bergamot. “So ask me to stop.”

The rise and fall of her chest beneath you is the slow swell of ocean water, buoying you up with the thrill of boundlessness and the threat of drowning. You feel the flicker of fingertips against your thighs and you know she’s flexing her hands into the sheets, battling for self-control once again tonight. You pull back to gaze down at her under you, though there’s no doubt you’re the one caught. 

Her tainted arm draws your attention. You’ve seen it before but… only clinically. In shadow the veins blend seamlessly into her neck, her chest. You can see minute fluctuations in the raised pathways as her heart pumps, faster because of what you’ve done to each other, are doing. You trace fingertips over a transition where vein melts into breast, and she reaches up with her marked arm to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, brushing your cheek. 

“I won’t. You should know that about me. I’ll never ask you to stop.”  
From her it's a warning but you hope it’s a promise.

She says it in a tone of resigned reality. Not an apology, but an irrevocable fact. You wonder how she came to know herself so deeply. If she had to fight for it or if she was born with an innate sense of rightness. You know she’s prideful, and walls may come up for others, but this depth of raw self-awareness with you cuts to the bone. This is an inflection point in your time with her; what you say next will determine the future course. There’s no need to wonder at what to say; with her you have never had any option but honesty. 

In the floating isolation of early morning and the drugged poetry of pure blissful exhaustion, you tell her the truth.

“You chase the unknown, to discover its secrets and bend them to your will. You see the light of truth before the rest of the world; they can only see the storm of chaos. But your punishment for standing at the front is to be battered by the winds, and to draw others like you into the storm. Don’t ever forget, I come willingly.”

You and her never speak of it again, but in this single moment she exposed her weaknesses and you held them secure. You admitted her power over you, and she didn’t take advantage of it.

You sink off her, moving gently to the side where you settle to stroke circles across her hips in the faint grey light of dawn. Eventually sleep overwhelms you. She says nothing, her eyes open to the ceiling, lost in thought.

* * *

Moira cooks dinner as she turns the day over in her mind. Spices sweeten the air but she can’t spit the bitter taste in her mouth, leftover from Han’s comments. The suggestion that she would use another with pure disregard for their potential wounded her more than she’d like to admit. 

She’s been disregarded before, by Angela, and she knows that sour feeling well. This time is different. Her research partner now is... different. She scoffs. A rudimentary description. But the inaccuracy touches at truth: Moira can’t quite pin her down. Despite her lack of genetic training that woman works with an intellect and insight to rival Moira’s own. Moira pours a glass of red wine and settles down to eat. Further, in the long silences they share in the lab Moira has felt a closeness, a synchronization of wills that has nothing to do with their research. Or perhaps everything.

Best to face the naked truth. Moira is afraid. She has never been one to deny a possibility, but the implications of exploring this closeness and what it could mean if—

Suddenly an alarm goes off on her phone: the special tone she’d assigned for notifications of after-hours lab entry. All else forgotten she pulls on clothing at hand and flies out the door, frantic and panicked for their work. Their potential.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may now return your seat backs and tray tables to their upright and locked positions.
> 
> FACT: The most indecent part of this chapter is that [these cups](https://www.cleanitsupply.com/p-53780/solo-cup-hot-paper-cups-8oz-polycoated-jazz-design-50-per-bag-scc378jzj.aspx) still exist in the future.


	9. The Sacred and the Profane

You open your eyes to a feeling of incredible lightness. Glowing triangles pattern your arm— patches of late-morning sunlight filtering through curtains in a unfamiliar room. You see three small bruises in the shape of fingertips above your elbow, and an inch-long scratch peppered with beads of dried blood. 

Moira lies awake. Turning to look at her you think: from her pride in self control, from her precise and meticulous formality, to this— Moira O’Deorain in bed beside you, after hours of a violent joy which neither of you could name now, not in words, but which is in her eyes and yours. You want to ask her: _Would you wish to know what I thought when I looked at you… when I lay awake at night… when I worked by your side? To reduce you to a body, to give you pleasure, to see you need it, to see your indomitable spirit submit to that need. To bring you to that, and to know it’s I who’ve done it. Because of that I will name this as my proudest attainment: I have slept with Moira O’Deorain. I earned it._

She is on her back and you reach toward her. At your touch she shuts her eyes, and covers your hand with hers. The way she holds it is despair.

“I want you to know this.”

She speaks evenly, with little inflection. Her accent is strong. 

“For a time now I’ve maintained that I will not need anyone. That is done. I never imagined you were capable of the things we did last night, and I would have damned anyone who’d suggested it. Now, I would not have it be otherwise. I used you for an animal’s pleasure. The contempt I feel for myself is none of your concern. But I watched you enjoy it. I thought you above this, but you are no better than me. I’ve always acted on my convictions. Let’s have no pretense about loyalty or the nature of what we are. If you wish to leave go now, but if you stay I will have you. This is my will.”

While she spoke you watched her movements, watched a triangle of sunlight slide over her left eyelid, watched her not move, as if the light was a warmth she could neither feel nor acknowledge. At first you held the blankets at your throat to cover your body, but as she continued it became clear that there was no need. You pull your hand from under hers. She opens her eyes in surprise. You throw off the covers and sit up facing her, naked. 

“I want you Moira. I’m much more of an animal than you think. I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, and the only thing I’m ashamed of is that I didn’t know it then. You’ll have me any time you wish, anywhere, on any terms. I will work in your lab, and when the work is difficult and hard to bear I will remember my reward is that I may be in your bed that night. To know I am the one you come to for this, what you think the basest pleasure, and I do not. I want your body because it’s _yours_ , because the mind that drives its convictions is yours. You speak of pretenses, but there is no one else I want this from.”  
You smile, remembering your first meeting, and add: “Any objections?"

As you finish speaking there is a silence, then she laughs in joy, in release, not as one laughs in the face of an unsolvable problem, but at the discovery that no problem ever existed.

She echoes your reply from that night as she pulls you toward her: “None.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This baby chapter stands alone because it is not really mine, but a gluttonous indulgence of fanfic-ception. References will be listed at the end of the work, but if you know where this scene comes from... a tip of my hat to you.


	10. The Invitation

The next few months are the brightest of your life. You work next to her in the lab, teasing apart the intricacies of life and watching her rebuild them. At the end of the day she takes you home and you fall in to bed together; she laughs, and you forget everything but the pleasure of her lips, her body wrapped around yours; and only a feeling of lightness remains. 

The healing solution is almost perfected. She’s figured out a way to pre-program helper genes to reconstruct tissue on contact, and you’ve given her the necessary energy in the form of a liquid. Combined together it restores cellular structure, but it’s not as consistent as she’d like. For once Moira is not giving you a hard time about repeat tests, she wants badly to get this right.

She slides though. At first it’s little diversions, a tweak to the formula ‘to see what will happen’ or a larger incision in the rabbit’s flesh to ‘determine the surface area-to-efficacy ratio’. Later it’s not so easily explained away, so she stops explaining. You were invited back into this lab to bring perspective, but you can’t give the kind of perspective she needs. She breathes pure science, pure truth, and the counter to that is humanity. You understand her, are too woven and connected with her to stay her hand. You would ask forgiveness if you believed in a god.

When you realize she’s been working on the formula for destruction in parallel to the healing research it’s too late. She wants to know the exact amount that will kill, or as she more euphemistically puts it: ‘the limit of what can be recovered from’. Seven rabbits die. Two immediately; four after several hours. One struggles for two days. She won’t end its suffering, but sits at the bench, in vigil. Observing. You know she’s seeing herself in it, the days spent in bed and pain, hoping for death. She strokes it through the cage, and hums one of her favorite songs. When its heart finally stops beating she leaves, abruptly, and doesn’t return that afternoon. You sleep alone that night. She’s there the next morning, same time as usual, but with a fiercer intensity of purpose in her eyes.

~~~

Moira never has meetings. She hates them. Today she’s dressed more smartly than usual, and you endure hours of grumbling commentary on how tedious official business is. It’s part performance though, you can tell she’s nervous with anticipation. She received a meeting invitation, advising the full board of directors would be in attendance. They didn’t specify a reason, but you suspect it has to do with the budget increase proposal you finally convinced her to submit.

You wish her luck, then tell her she doesn’t need it. She’s armed with a folder of the most recent developments in what you both agree should be seen by the board as insanely lucrative research. You smile, and she scowls, then adds, “Our work is undeniable, I’ll make sure they see its significance.”

It’s been weeks since you had time for a proper workout. She said she’d message when the meeting was out, so you head to the gym. It feels good to stretch, to move your muscles in ways lab work doesn’t require. To feel a challenge that isn’t mental, and an exhaustion that isn’t the result of sleeplessness. You lose track of time and before you notice three hours have passed. No message from her, she probably forgot in her haste to get back to work. You hope she isn’t conducting more insidious trials. You rush to change and sprint back to the main facility, taking the basement stairs two at a time.

Your mind is going over tomorrow’s round of tests, so when you open the door you don’t expect to find— _this_.

You try to shout, but it comes as a whisper: “Oh my god. What have you done?”

Shattered glass. Everywhere. Angles and points and knives cut from what used to be vials and slides and months of work. There’s movement— she’s a hunched shadow in the corner, backlit by a task lamp. Upright at least, conscious.

“Moira?” No response.

She is almost unrecognizable in her shirtsleeves, angled awkwardly over the table top, a tree bent and battered by storm winds. Snapping vials of neutral solution, used for mixing potential genetic trials in, one by one. Each tray holds one hundred and she’s near half a tray already, you can’t even be sure if this is her first.

In six strides you’re across the room, crunching glass underfoot like it’s sand, like it’s irrelevant, because it is if she looks like this. Red streaks crosshatch purple pathways along the skin of her scarred arm. Dark pools have collected on the lab bench and against the black surface you can’t tell if they’re spilled solutions or blood. How much has she lost? Blood is splattered over her chest and her face, and there are shards of glass embedded in her hand. Her vacant eyes glazed; the vial in her hand her singular purpose. _Pop._

This is unfamiliar territory, and you wonder if she even knows you’re here. You try a different tact.

“Dr. O’Deorain?” With authority, “You’re bleeding.”

“What?” Her voice is faint, breathy.

But she doesn’t stop. _Pop._ The glass is so thin that when it shatters in her hands there’s no innocent tinkle of shards, just a dull pop like an old-fashioned lightbulb gone bad. _Pop._ Drop. Another. _Pop._

She’s popping the vials like regrets, unused moments of time let pass and bottled, stored out of sight but not out of mind. Potential made impotent by confinement. You hate to see her in this state. It’s unnatural and you curse whatever has turned her to this. She’s twisted into an amalgam of agony and apathy and you want to uncurl her body and straighten her out, straighten her up, stay with her until the two of you kill this terrible thing together. “Stop!” _Pop._ She doesn’t. 

“God damn it Moira, stop!” You grab her arm as blood smears under your palm.

She turns on you then, snarling. Fierce wild eyes and strength in her body, fully the monster others claim she is. Uninhibited entropy. Power and fury. She jerks her arm up and away, but you hold on. This is the other side of her you’ve glimpsed in flashes. True potential, pure chaos allowed release. She twists, fighting your grasp and clawing to break your grip on her. You hold on. 

In the battle of wills you don’t win, but you are a fair enough match. She yields. Slackens. Staggers as you release her arm and catches herself on the tabletop edge. Catches herself in the moment, shutting eyes tight and curling her knuckles into a fist, blood trickling from between fingers.

“Not again. We’re close. So. Fucking. Close.” She looks down at the pile of destruction beneath her. “Everything I touch...”

Dread. Some of the chaos remains, but it swirls around her, she’s no longer commanding it. She’s unraveling faster than you can grab a loose strand. She sobs. A single spasm that travels from her chest through her shoulders to be torn from her mouth, followed by only one more. You can tell she’s unaccustomed to it and it’s that more than the problem at hand that breaks down any final reticence. Aside from that first night she’s never sanctioned affection in the lab; all you’ve shared are the slight, impersonal touches of coworkers, fingers accidentally brushing as you handle the rabbits, her standing behind you just a shade too close. No one will walk in (no one ever walks in), but even so she maintains a line of professionalism at work that dissolves every night as soon as you walk through her door. So when you step nearer to rest a hand on her shoulder she stiffens, even under the weight of her anguish. You lean back to settle your eyes on hers, a plea for her to stay with you in this second, and those that follow. 

“Moira, hold on. Let me help you.”

You move to an undamaged microfridge and grab vials of the healing solution, bringing them back to her side. Brushing glass like dust off the table onto the floor, to make room. Folding her bloodier arm into your body, red soaking and spreading across your shirt. You tweeze minute shards of glass from her wounds and drop them in a dish, while she floats still in a haze of unawareness. You next unseal a vial and extract solution into a pipette. 

“First human trial,” you whisper grimly, gently locking her arm against your stomach so you can carefully drip solution into her wounds.

Among the shadows you feel her unsteady breathing as eddies in the air. You brace yourself against the tide.

“What happened at the meeting?”

She’s silent for so long you’re not sure if she heard the question. Then, “They’re shutting us down.”

_“What?!”_

Her voice is hollow now, spent. “Courting a new donor. They didn’t want to say, but reading between lines the potential donor thinks very highly of Overwatch and its old work. So obviously the board wants the institute to be as clean as possible in that regard. They’re washing their hands of me.”

You cover her hand on the pretense of applying more solution, but you’ve done enough, now it only needs time. You’re afraid she will spiral again. She’s still on the edge. You hurt for her; you remember how impatient she was to leave that afternoon, dressed as smartly as ever and brimming with low-key excitement, a small decorative metal knot you’d never seen before pinned to her lapel. 

“And their only lead-in to this was to send you a meeting invite? Cowards.”

“I’ve been sending in quarterly reports - they are required to secure funding - but I’ve never received any feedback. I thought they finally wanted to discuss our progress. I didn’t hold it against them that they hadn’t seen the value of my work—as long as they saw it at last. Of course they’ve been filled with cowardice, and hypocrisy, but I thought their motive for setting a meeting was that they’d finally seen the irrefutable worth of the work and—“ 

You smile sadly in her brief space of a pause, you know the sentence she had stopped herself from saying: “—and for that I would forgive anything.”

Instead she finishes with: “But they hadn’t.”

She’s held prisoner not for her faults, but by her virtues. You can see her falling again, trapped by thoughts seeking an outlet. You open your hands around hers and marvel at how most of her wounds have already closed. This is truly revolutionary science.

“You're no good to us like this.”

“I know. I—“ But she can’t finish. Dried flecks of blood mottle her neck. She’s not fit mentally or physically to leave the lab, let alone walk across campus to her house. The institution has done this to her, and you won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing it.

You lace your fingers through hers and tug, she looks warily at the connection but allows you to lead her to the chemical spill shower in the back corner of the lab. Its supposed to be for emergencies only but fuck this place.

You undress her with steady hands. First her ruined shirt, button by bloody button. You’re going to strip her of the doubts planted by the board, and wash her clean until this afternoon’s meeting is just a ghost of a memory in her future history of progress. In the battle between them and you they’re fighting with inadequate methods.

Her camisole comes next, black today, sliding up to reveal the flat, pale plane of her stomach and sharp points of her hipbones, soft, round breasts rising and falling under her still unsteady breaths.

You kneel on the hard tile to remove her pants, skimming hands down her sides as you go, attentive to any reaction, but she’s not responding. Her black panties are silk, and you hook two fingers under them to slip silently down her cool thighs. 

You remove your clothes too - your bloody shirt a souvenir you may cherish or burn depending on how this ends.

She gasps at the first touch of cold water. You pull her into an embrace, tight, bodies flush together, arms wrapped under hers and hands pressing against the back of her head until her chin buries down in the crook of your neck. You tilt your head and speak slowly into her ear, louder than the hiss of water. 

“We will get through this. You’re stronger than them. They don’t understand what they’re giving up, but they will. They’ll know it when it’s too late, when you have your pick of institutions and unlimited funding. Your mind is yours Moira, don’t let them have it. Right now there’s only this, here. Stay with me.”

And you’ve never taken this tone with her, of demanding authority, calming and commanding, and it’s a risk, but she responds by wrapping her arms around you. You hold her several moments longer before pulling back just far enough to begin rubbing blood spots off her neck.

She tilts her head back at your touch, eyes closed, cold water spray pounding against her face. Rivulets running around cheekbones, lips parted, enduring. Flattening red hair to run the length and fall off the tips, down her back, sharp shoulder blades jutting like broken wings. Small rivers skirt the muscles in her legs, spiraling around inner thighs and tracing the sensitive spot on the back of her knees before curving around calves to pool and drain at her feet.

As you wash the blood from her body she begins to take deep, shaking breaths. You continue gentle sweeping arcs to erase red stains with your fingerpads as her hot tears blend with cool water.

You can feel her back straighten under your arms, and she releases a final shuddering breath. When you look in her eyes gone is the woman trapped in her mind, poisoned with doubts now overcome.

It’s as if she sees you for the first time here, brought out of reverie, in control again. Sharp. She wipes a spot of her blood from your lips and leans down, curling a hand around your waist before covering your mouth with hers. A consuming, heavy kiss that tells you she’s anchored again; gratitude pouring into you, grounded and drinking in her fill.

She kisses you until you can’t tell the difference between the heat of her lips and cold sting of water. Afterwards she rests her chin on your wet hair, and whispers “I’m sorry.”

You turn the water off and step away from the drain. During the shower you had an idea, but don’t want to get her hopes up. You wrap yourself only in one of her lab coats and while she’s still drying and re-dressing open your laptop. You browse through biomedical conference listings. 

“Moira…” You’re try and fail to keep your voice level. “We don’t have to publish.”

She turns, glares. Herself once again. “What are you on about? Like hell we don’t! Do you know how much of your shit I’ve put up with for the sake of ‘data integrity’…”

You laugh, because she’s right, but so are you.

“No, listen. The International Conference on Genetics and Bioengineering is next month. The deadline to submit is Friday.” You continue reading through the requirements, “They don’t even require a full paper to give a talk… we can just submit an abstract!” 

She doesn’t respond immediately. Likely generating a list of reasons this won’t work in her head, and knocking down each obstacle with a logical solution. 

“Moira, you can present our findings at the largest forum for bioengineering in the world. You’ll have your pick of collaborators from now on. They’ll be begging to fund your work.”

She comes up behind you and, now that the moratorium on physical touch in the lab has been broken, wraps her arms around your waist and buries her face in your neck, wet hair tickling your cheeks.

“The board will _hate_ that.” Her smile is warm against your skin. 

You slide the laptop in front of her, a blank text window open. “Write. I’ll take care of the mess.”

You dress and clean up the evidence of her despair, and she types a perfect paragraph. She occasionally runs wording by you and you make suggestions. There is a sickening moment before she hits ‘submit’ when she changes you to lead author. You plead with her not to, but she counters that the community won’t accept anything written under her name, not yet. You have to agree. All the more motivation for doing this. 

“But,” you say, “this is your work. You’ll be the one to give the talk.”

“Naturally.”

* * *

Walking back from the meeting, Moira wonders if this is finally it. She’s held firm to her beliefs for so long, always vowing to let nothing stand in the way of progress. She recalls sleepless nights pushing against the forces that opposed her even as they grew, thinking she would just have to push a little harder, just a little further, but she’s so tired.

Life, she thought, is defined as motion. One’s life was purposeful motion. What then is the state of a being to whom all forward progress was denied? Left to breathe and see and ask ‘Why?’ and receive only silence as explanation. She continued on, feet carrying her to the lab, unbidden, her sanctuary, though the thought of that place left a hollow feeling in her chest now. She thought of the sects of men hiding in dark corners of history, who believed that man was trapped in an evil universe with no purpose but his own torment. Today, for the first time, she understood them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You [ can totally store energy in liquid,](https://interestingengineering.com/scientists-develop-liquid-that-can-store-solar-energy-for-more-than-a-decade#:~:text=To%20put%20the%20trapped%20energy,for%20up%20to%2018%20years) so who needs nanites anyway?


	11. The Conference

The abstract submitted under your name is accepted.

The findings are extraordinary but with Moira’s brilliance and your critical eye the data is sure. You pack a bag and board the transport, elated, as if the act of flying away from the institute could tear its claws from her. You feel tangled in her now, though she isn’t any more yours than she was that first night. You know the subtle differences in her sighs; when to push her further and when to pull her back from an edge. She still doesn’t touch you in public, but you suppose that’s a small price to pay for the way she touches you at night. You can see she needs time, and that’s one of the few things you can give her. 

The transport lands like an omen, solemn and firm in the telling. This year’s conference is in Germany, and your talk is on the first day. A relief, a small mercy that you’ll only have to endure these nerves for a few more hours. 

There’s a keynote in the main events hall, but most of the talks or panels are given in smaller auditoriums with a stage up front. On arrival she wants to wander around the convention center grounds, but you drag her past the manicured lawn and flowering bushes inside to a labyrinth of identical hallways. Your assigned room is no different from the rest, but at least there isn’t a talk scheduled beforehand so you and her have time to run through the slides. Everything works. You triple check the network connections. 

“Relax,” she says from her position backstage, reclining in one chair with her feet up on another. She’s completely at ease, head tilted back and if not for her recent admonishment you might think her napping. There’s a binary distribution of energy between you two; you ended up carrying all the anxiety. All the better, you suppose, since she’ll be the one presenting. You want to place a hand on her shoulder to ground yourself but draw back. _Not here._ Instead you peek from behind curtains to watch the room filling up.

You groaned and protested when she insisted on the title of the talk, but looking at the packed room now you have to admit she was right. You wanted to call it ‘A Novel Method for Recomposition of Damaged Tissue via DNA Programming and Rapid Energy Transmission.’ She titled it ‘Saviour Machine: Biothermal Regeneration’. 

There are even people standing at the back.

 _Stick to the script_ you'd begged her, and schooled her in the statistical analysis you’d used to give the results credibility her earlier work lacked. Conventional ethics were still a minor inconvenience to her - in the end you two had experimented again on her arm, yes, but in a carefully controlled environment. The structure of the talk makes it sound like you happened to generate a perfect specimen in the lab, and you’ve both decided to encourage that idea. There will be no mention of the destructive solution.

An AV tech comes over to attach a microphone to her lapel. She’s wearing that pin again, the one she had on the day she met with the board. You make a mental note to ask about it later. She stretches, rises, flashes a smile at you as she struts confidently out on stage, low-heeled shoes clipping hardwood. The crowd is chatting amongst themselves, but they grow silent at her entrance and you swear you hear a gasp from somewhere in the room.

She towers over the audience, not the slouching or slanted posture conducive to lab work, but tall and proud. She isn’t lowering herself to the level of others, rather, demonstrating her quality and demanding they rise to meet her. You didn’t realize how much was off, how out of phase she was, until she stepped on stage. 

She’s alive in a way you’ve never seen her before, discussing each slide without even glancing at it and presenting the findings with a technical art and master showmanship. She basks in the attention, positively writhes in it. She belongs here. At the center of the scientific community, leading the way, owning the stage and commanding the audience’s attention like their savior. Or their caesar.

Pure class.

When she finishes speaking, there is silence, and for a moment you feel sick. Then the audience erupts into discussion and shouted questions, talking over one another until the facilitator brings them to order. Moira answers questions comfortably, still commanding the room, further explaining the energy transfer process and getting snarky with a woman who challenges the findings.

She exits the stage grinning, triumph marked in her expression and a state of complete ease in her body. Exaltation. You start to congratulate her but she cuts you off, pulls you close and kisses you, boldly and openly. You’re shocked, but surprise is replaced by happiness. Warm liquid bliss trickling down your spine, joy and relief and release. It clouds your senses so the indignant cry behind you of “Moira! How—“ doesn’t immediately register.

Moira goes stiff in your arms and you glance up to see her staring past you. You follow the path of her eyes to a woman you’re startled to recognize from her official portrait in the Overwatch archives. It’s not difficult, she doesn’t look a day older. The woman is just as stunned, obviously not expecting to find the speaker of that revolutionary talk embracing her co-author backstage. Moira exhales. 

“Angela.”

* * *

Moira has a pin, a small Dara knot she picked up in grad school that she’s worn to every talk and presentation she’s ever given. She doesn’t believe in luck of course, faith is a shaky presupposition; she stands only on facts and her convictions. But still. It has been with her at every major turning point in her life. There’s a correlation there she can’t deny, at least. She packs it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to formally, finally welcome all the Mercy fans to... wait what? Oh they all left so many chapters ago? Yeah... fair enough.


	12. The Best Within Us

Angela Ziegler recovers quickly.

“I’m sorry, am I _interrupting_?” Her tone is scathing, but expression wrong-footed. She’s taller than you thought she’d be. Her golden-blonde hair is pulled back into a high ponytail, and she holds a folded blue and white conference program in her hand.

Moira’s arms have fallen to her side but she does not step away from you. Her initial shock is fading. She seems indifferent, but you know her face well enough now to see the effort it is costing her. 

“To what do we owe this great honor, Angela?”

“Moira - what are you _doing_ here?!”

“Presenting incredible science of course.”

Dr. Ziegler brandishes the conference schedule at Moira, righteous indignation sharp on her tongue. “Presenting your findings under a false name? You’re just as unconscionable as ever!”

You’re confused, then remember your name was listed first, and is therefore the only one in the proceedings. 

“Angela... you always underestimate me. We achieved this together.” Moira looks to you and smiles, but her gaze is over your shoulder, avoiding your eyes. 

Dr. Ziegler scoffs. Regains a degree of professionalism. “Then you are the lead author I presume?” You introduce yourself, but feel caught between them. She doesn’t shake your hand, you suspect still working through what she just witnessed.

Beside you, Moira shifts her weight. She’s restless, unmoored.

Dr. Ziegler crosses her arms over her chest, and steps one foot forward, glaring at Moira.

“You just can’t let it go can you?”

“Let it go?”

“Rapid regeneration… I thought you’d have learnt your lesson!”

“This is my life’s work! Angela, you of all people should understand-”

“Well I don’t!” She throws her hands in the air. “If Overwatch hadn’t closed the door on that research your actions certainly should have! I don’t see how you can have such little regard for yourself. Or others…” she glares at Moira, rage kindled in the twist of her mouth. “I hope you at least followed proper testing protocols this time.” Her gaze flits between Moira and you.

You’re not sure how to react. Moira is quiet beside you but slides her right hand into her pocket. Dr. Ziegler correctly interprets the shared silence.

“Hmph. I see. You haven’t changed at all. I’m surprised there’s any bit of you left to experiment on.” Her frustration escalates when Moira doesn’t respond; it’s like she’s needling for a reaction. “Or is that why you needed a co-author?”

With that, she’s gone too far.

“How dare you,” Moira’s voice is lower than you’ve ever heard it. “That was once. I made a mistake. _I’m_ not one to cast others aside for personal gain, Angela. Nor am I the one who happily sells them out at the first opportunity.”

“…What?” You hear the genuine surprise in Dr. Ziegler’s voice, but you can tell Moira doesn’t.

She continues, “Besides, if what I’ve heard is true, it seems you’ve greatly relaxed your position on self modification.” Moira’s eyes travel slowly over Angela’s body, lingering longer than decent. Salacious, but intending to wound rather than worship. “And it does indeed seem to be true. You’re looking… radiant.”

She’s right. Dr. Ziegler’s skin is smooth, her hair lustrous, and despite a lack of makeup she seems to glow. By your calculations you and she are about the same age, but she appears younger. Her body is undamaged, her eyes are not.

She suddenly fidgets like the room is stuffy, and her shirt is too tight at the neck. She huffs, pivots to leave, then back to address you.

“I recommend you get out while you still can. You never can really know someone.”

“Angela?” This time it’s Moira’s turn to be confused. 

But Dr. Ziegler is already out the door.

~~~

This should’ve been a day of celebration, elation at your shared success, but Moira is subdued through the evening. You field inquiries already coming in about the talk, her work, while she sits on the sill and stares out the window of your hotel room at the city below. Her shirt is unbuttoned and sleeves rolled to the elbow. She looks like she could use a strong drink. The sun sets, her hair matched against a fire-red sky, and she remains motionless. Brooding, you realize. There’s no other word for it. You wonder if all geniuses come with a flair for the dramatic, or if it’s a particular feature of geneticists.

“Fine.” You shut your laptop. The best way out is always through. “Tell me about her.”

She’s piqued. Turns with a look that says _I don’t know what you’re on about_ but you shut her down with one that says simply, _bitch please._

She sighs. Runs a hand over her hair. Falters in starting but as she speaks it becomes easier, a trickle to a stream to a river washing away years of built-up sediment.

“We met five years ago. She was head of Medical. I was pleased to join Overwatch. I had just won the Franklin XPrize so was a natural choice, of course. Angela and I were tasked with various short-term assignments, but the joint goal was researching cellular repair and tissue regeneration, to aid soldiers in battle. She has a brilliant mind, and I welcomed the opportunity to finally work with an equal.” 

“There was tension in the beginning, her constant need to toe the line tormented me, but we eventually coalesced toward the same goal. Or, I thought we did. When I… when the incident happened I did what I did because I thought we were unified in our aims, if not our methodologies.”

“I should’ve realized she had much higher ambitions, and saw me as a weight dragging her down. She’d never be able to further her career if tied too closely to ‘that mad geneticist’… Morrison called me that, once. I overheard, and she didn’t correct him. She must’ve been waiting for a chance to sell me out and secure her place in his good graces. And like the fool I am, I created the perfect opportunity for her.”

She pauses, looking out the window again, but now that night has fallen you see her reflection in it, layered over countless lights from countless rooms in the city beyond.

“She likely feels I didn’t do her any favors. I pushed for us to excel, and she resisted. She held me back at times, but it was nothing to her own self-sabotage. Alone I can’t imagine she achieved what she wanted. She didn’t know what she wanted,” Moira adds, as an afterthought.

“She did say she wanted to go into combat.” Moira shakes her head. “No that’s not right. She wanted to save lives, and would do whatever it took. Morrison and Amari were master puppeteers… and in the end they had their way. Of course they did. I cautioned her against field duty. She was... too valuable. An asset. For Overwatch to loose to the mayhem of combat. She didn’t believe she’d really be in danger. So naive, but far be it from her to listen to any of my advice.”

“I admired what she was trying to do, and if she’d opened her mind to the possibilities we could’ve advanced the work even faster. But her insular morality bound her. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she had saved the entire world. So she would never be satisfied.”

“We would fight about everything, about nothing really. I think sometimes she just liked seeing how far I could be pushed. But I’m not one to go down easily.” Moira smiles. “She has a very prominent supratrochlear vein - I could see from across the room when she was getting angry, that line in her forehead swelling despite her calm facade. I backed her into a logic corner so many times; once she even- ”

She’s smiling wider, far away in memories. Angela the Betrayer apparently forgotten. Her words have soaked in, Moira is saturated with them, a swirl of emotions bottled and shelved for years. Pulling the bottles down now to taste what’s inside and finding it surprisingly palatable. At the same time you’re feeling gravity shift, pressing down on you.

You let her drift for a time, then: “Why is she here?”

That brings Moira sharply back. “I’ve no idea. After Overwatch collapsed I read she took a position in Switzerland. Some kind of bleeding heart charity nonsense. Beneath her.”

“Do you think,” this is tactless, but you’re running out of grace, “do you think she’s here looking for you?”

Moira bristles at the possibility. Denial masking hope. “God no. She hates me.”

You hurry not to let this pause stretch, keeping your voice light and setting your features to a mild expression that doesn’t allow any of the turmoil beneath to surface. 

“Well only one way to find out for sure, should we invite her out for drinks? Truth serum?”

“She doesn’t drink, I brought a bottle of wine in to the lab one night and she-“ Moira suddenly stops, aware of the tone in her voice and what she’s saying, and that it’s _you_ she’s saying it to. But more shocking to her is that she knows these things like the back of her scarred hand, even after so many years apart. She turns to you, burned by the realization.

“Oh Moira…” You’re numb. You can’t keep the charade going any longer. _Did you love her_ is not a question that needs to be asked, its answer is too apparent. _Do you love her still_ a thorned vine that has tangled its way around you in your ignorance, insistent of its innocence and stinging should you try to escape.

She rises from the window and comes to sit beside you. She laces her long fingers between yours, resting on the table.  
“I'm sorry. I forget myself. It’s in the past. I don’t know why the hell she’s here but I’ll be glad to have her out of our sight at the end of the week.”

You want to scream at her that that’s not true, but you don’t, because she believes herself. 

She kisses you, then leaves to pick up dinner from a restaurant down the street. You can tell she feels better, in the rational way that she justifies emotions. A survival instinct. You feel worse. Your composure is cracking; she’s had more practice at this.

You don’t sleep that night, or well for the rest of the conference week. Moira takes you in fury the next evening, all nails and teeth while you’re drowning under her, and you surrender completely to it, to her, to sensuous oblivion. But it’s not right; you can feel her pushing for release. 

She tosses and turns and mumbles Angela’s name in her sleep; clutches at you with eyes closed and you hate yourself for loving her touch even then. You don’t mention it the next morning, her eyes bright, perceptive to so much outside and blind to what’s in.

Jealousy is a weed.

~~~

In the remaining days of the conference Moira attends meetings with people who’ve asked for them, and gives an interview. You spend the time forwarding those requests to her inbox and doing research of your own, into Angela. It can’t be as cut and dry as Moira made it out. There are loose threads that want pulling. So you do what you do best, _why she hired you_ : pick apart the situation to appease the nudge in your mind. You tell yourself you’re doing it for her, because that’s the only justification, because you can feel it’s shaking loose the bottom brick on a crumbling building, and you’ll be standing underneath when it collapses.

You pull threads until you’ve unraveled five years of research, and misery, and malcontent. And, you suspect, something else. Something near heaven. When you’re finished you step back, and wish you could walk away. But you will face it, and the days after.

~~~

All those hours in the gym are finally paying off. This conference center is huge, and in the end you have to run to catch her.

“Dr. Ziegler!” She’s nearing the end of an empty hallway; this is the last day of the conference and she’s likely on her way to the airport.

She slows as you approach but doesn’t stop, “I’m very busy I’m sorry I don’t have time now to-“ her tone is polite until she recognizes your face. “You! I have nothing to say to you!”

“Good. I need you to listen.” She’s stopped now, but with hands on her hips and feet squared. A shooting stance.

You inhale while silently counting, to calm your breathing. This is your last chance to walk away. You don’t. 

“Six months after Moira was dismissed from Overwatch there was a survey of opinions published in the journal _Nature_ discussing the ethics and responsibilities of scientific progress. One view, writer Anonymous, argued that if a system of oversight is too restrictive or public opinion weighted too heavily then that can be a barrier to genuine scientific discovery.”

“Science is not democratic. The anonymous author stated that in such a case it was a scientist’s moral obligation to break boundaries, else the system would stagnate and collapse under its own archaic limitations. That segment of text, when cross-referenced with your entire body of published work, produces a 85% match with cadence and word choice.”

A pause. 

“Dr. Ziegler, did you write it?”

“What? That’s absurd.” She tucks one foot behind the other and worries at her heel with the toe of her shoe. Averts her eyes.

“Moira doesn’t give a damn about Overwatch, but she thinks you were behind the public statement they released condemning her actions.”

“No that was Ana -“ Another piece of the puzzle slots into place.

“Nevertheless. She can’t imagine it was anyone but you. It would change her life to know that you didn’t damn her.”

Dr. Ziegler shakes her head gently, a soft movement that swings into rage.

“Change her life? _Her_ life?! Was she on the battlefield for that final year? Has she seen soldiers and friends die, and wonder if we’d only been able to work together a little longer then I might’ve had a more efficient healing method? That I’d be able to bring them all back, and stop so much of this senseless loss? Was she there to help me analyze the Valkyrie suit’s malfunctions? Of course not! She doesn’t think of her affect on others, she only ever thinks of herself!”

Her voice shakes but Dr. Ziegler subdues it. Commands a low, vicious authority in which you can hear the incalculable losses, personal and professional. Grief and fury.

“I found her on the floor of our lab and thought she was DEAD!” Sharp staccato syllables ricocheting off unforgiving walls. There’s no one else to hear. She masters her volume, but not her emotions.

“When I found her, I thought she was dead. I couldn’t imagine how she’d made such a mistake. When she woke up, and I realized she’d done it to herself on _purpose_ , I—“ she struggles, whether with how much to tell you or because she’s not worked through it herself you’re not sure. “I couldn’t believe she’d throw away everything we’d worked for just like that. That she didn’t want my help. I thought I knew her. I was wrong.”

“They took her away and wouldn’t let me see her. I was head of medical and they wouldn’t even tell me if her condition was stable! I went to Jack and demanded access for an examination… he told me she’d already been released and relieved of duty; that she was a security threat. That if I tried to contact her the system would flag it as sedition and he’d have to let me go. He reminded me why I was there, to save lives and end the war.”

“I understand now why he did it… it had to be done.” Her voice is barely audible, and she’s wrapped her arms loosely around herself.

She makes a sound of frustration. “We were so close! Scheisse. _Scheisse!_ Why did she have to go and ruin it! Without her there I could work in the right direction but, I know there are things I missed, and soldiers paid the price. I can’t even do anything about it now. Overwatch holds the patents. In the end we left it all to fools… it should’ve been ours.”

Despite whatever may have happened with Moira, you understand the injustice of having her work commandeered. “Dr. Ziegler, I’m so sorry.”

She touches the corner of her eye with her sleeve, dismissive. “It’s none of your concern. ”

A singular silence. 

You push, for Moira’s sake. Because she may never have another chance to know. “How did you end up at the talk? Were you looking for her?”

“Heavens no! This is my field! I may not be doing advanced research anymore but I still keep up with the science. You never know what could be of benefit.” She pauses, recalling. “The title of her talk! Mein Gott! I should have known it was her. No one else would have the audacity!”

She suddenly smiles; it’s in her eyes the same way it’s in Moira’s, all those times she’s spoken to you and you’ve known she’s somewhere else, lost in memory. Now you know where’s she been. With Angela. Always with Angela. 

And it’s in that smile you see, and you hate that you see: Moira is Angela’s counterpoint and Angela is hers. How each spirals without the other to anchor her. That you should realize this at the end of an empty hallway thousands of miles from home, that your presence here is your own doing… you can’t help but quietly laugh. You think you should’ve been broken by something greater, someone greater. But that is self-deception. Studying Dr. Ziegler now you see in her eyes the years of effort, alone, with no one to rely on but herself. She’ll be fine. They’ll be fine. 

You turn away, but Dr. Ziegler doesn’t realize.

“When she walked out on stage I couldn’t believe it.” You remember hearing a gasp, and now know its source. “She’s still just the same. She was always so sure of herself. I admired that. Moira is so talented. But she gets lost in her work. She loses sight of everything… she needs grounding.” She smiles, “She does do her hair a little differently now, I suppose.”

She floats on memory while you try to make a silent exit. You need to be alone.

“Wait- don’t go. I’m sorry for how I reacted. It’s been years and I— “ She extends her hand. “Congratulations. It’s fine work.”

“Thank you.” You accept her offered hand, and she covers yours with both of hers. You know then what dozens of soldiers must’ve felt in dying breaths that weren’t. Hope among loss. Her hands are warm and comforting.

She presses gently on your palm. “Why are _you_ here? Talking to me I mean.”

 _For her._ “I… you should know the truth. Moira, she’s not… she didn’t want any of that. She regrets it.” _More than she knows._

Dr. Ziegler’s lips part, narrowed eyes. “You could’ve let me think otherwise.” She studies you. “No. I suppose you couldn’t. You are quite like her you know. I mean that as a compliment.” She’s smiling now.

You can’t. You have to get away. “Dr. Ziegler, I don’t want to keep you…”

“Oh my goodness! Yes, I'll miss my flight! Thank you so much. Truly. It’s been a pleasure.” She squeezes your hand again before rushing off.

It should be remembered that you at least made it into an empty room before breaking.

* * *

\- _Three years previous, at Overwatch Medical R &D facilities_ -

Moira has set all her work aside, and sits watching Angela line up prospective armor materials by weight. She’s making notes; Moira knows from the way her eyes scrunch when she’s concentrating. Moira sees it in her sleep. Among other things.

Angela doesn’t notice Moira’s attention.

“On the battlefield, if you go, they will shoot at you.”

“I’m a doctor. A medic.”

“An obstacle to their goal of killing enemy soldiers.”

“There are protocols and treaties in place.”

Angela still hasn’t looked up. 

“Damn it Angela how can be this naive?! Not everyone is innocent! There’s no great purity at the heart of man! Everyone has the potential to kill. You have to understand that so you can protect yourself against it!”

Angela’s eyes snap up, shocked into stillness. Her face mirrors what must register on Moira’s, though it’s unfamiliar there. Concern. With a touch of fear.

“Moira I—“

“You’re too valuable. Don’t throw that away. There will always be people who need help. There are plenty of medics. There’s only one of you.” Moira forces the words out. She’s never been this forward. She’s never before had reason to be.

“But we have to do something.”

“What do you think we’re doing here?” Moira spreads her arms wide. “Why waste time on a combat suit when we haven’t even figured out a stable regeneration solution?”

Angela steps away from the armor, setting down her notes.

“Well, I suppose I’ll stay a little longer.” She puts one hand on her hip, and smiles in Moira’s favorite way. Winks. “You shouldn’t work alone anyway you know, you’d get into trouble. You lack perspective.”


	13. New Beginning

The transport home is quiet, and Moira can’t seem to have left soon enough. The both of you, but things are not the same.

Back in the lab, where boxes are beginning to fill with three years of her accumulated miscellany, you help her sift thorough job offers— including one to head a genetics ministry in a brand-new city. The proposal includes extensive language about how liberal an attitude the city will take toward research. 

“Sounds well-suited to you,” you say to her. 

“Maybe,” she responds, drifting. She drifts often lately. You can bring her back to you still, but it takes effort. From the both of you. 

You’ve also received a job offer: to lead your own research team at an institute on the coast. Practically unlimited funding. You know you can’t gene sequence for her forever, what time you had is fading. This was never a sustainable relationship in that sense. _Working relationship._

What you’ve resolved to do has already begun, but the doing is as easy as tearing off your own limbs.

You spend two days searching for alternatives. And then one more just to be sure. The answer stares you down. (It’s always been there, and you’ve always known it, but you wanted to live in ignorance for these three days, a velvet imagining where you could have your fantasy and it would not sting.) So you start pushing through the thorns in your mind, letting them cut you as you lower your defenses. When that becomes too hard you head to the gym and run until your lungs are on fire and you have to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing. 

Then you shower, and dress, and walk the well-known route to her house. The sun is almost down. You pass the low building with the cafe inside, where she bought you both breakfast while you slept on her office couch. She had been exhausted, and perfect that morning, and all the rest. She’d said she wanted to experience greatness, and you’d fallen for her even further. She was well on her way now. 

The Central Tower should be almost empty today, and there is no one waiting for public transport pickup as you pass the stop. The board meets in there, you realize. You don’t think of them, not anymore. Small men and women who were overcome by Moira’s clever mind and your resourcefulness. They had no idea who they were messing with.

You pass the place where she’d looked at you that first night on the walk to her house, and you’d looked back to see a soul that reflected your own. 

Days are shortening and the oak trees, _her oak trees_ as you’d taken to thinking of them, are starting to turn their deepest shade of red. It reminds you of her hair. Everything here is her. 

She’s always invited you over, or pulled you home from the lab, but this time you arrive unannounced. When she answers the knock you push in and lock the door behind you.

“It’s early. I didn’t expect -“

“We never do.”

She’s wearing a lavender tie, dressed from an earlier interview with one of many prospective employers; you grab it and pull her down to you, dragging her close and cupping a hand to her cheek, tongue darting out to press against lips that part instinctually, testament that she’s still no one else’s, at least for tonight.

She tastes like iron and clear sparkling sin. Fading summer sun has left the faintest of freckles across her nose. You’re glad she didn’t code that out of her genes; it gives her a look both earthy and ephemeral. You wish you had time to watch them lighten with the winter.

Your hand on her cheek moves up her neck to disrupt carefully arranged hair. You want to remember her messy and wild, the side she reserved solely for you. She’s not resisting... _I’ll never ask you to stop._ You finally release her tie, but only so you can remove it. You push her back into the kitchen table, so she can brace herself while you press heavy kisses against her chest as you open each shirt button. Her hands grip the table behind her, and she tilts her head back like a sacrifice, pliant and willing. She knows she is worthy enough to appease any god. You unfasten her slacks and let them fall around her ankles. She steps out and kicks them aside.

There must be a darkness in your eyes, because you see its reflection in hers, but darkness is not a thing she runs from. She seems to sense this is not a time for _why?_ , and so sweeps fingertips underneath the hem of your shirt then lifts it over your head. She unclasps your bra and slides it off, ducking down to palm one breast while trailing gentle biting kisses down your chest. You moan above her head when she reaches a nipple and lingers there. 

Her home is well-decorated. Beautiful, handpicked pieces of furniture with history you never had the chance to ask her about. You pull her past all of them to the bedroom. 

“Lie down.” It is not a request.

She steps to you, searching your eyes. You hold her gaze, open and honest. Always. She slides your pants down and off in one smooth motion. 

She touches your face, swirling her thumb across your lower lip. “Alright.” It’s not submission, it’s acknowledgement.

You push her toward the bed then step to turn on a lamp in the corner. You don’t want to miss a second of this. Light bounces off the far wall and casts a soft warm glow around the room. There aren’t enough hours in a lifetime to index everything you will remember about her. For instance how gently she can make love, when she wants to. How she looks when she’s exhausted and how she is invigorated even then, possibilities burning in her eyes in spite of how badly her body needs rest. How unconcerned she looks in her sleep. Her sharp intake of breath when she’s struck with a new idea. The rough, hardened surface of her scarred veins, and how she wears them like a badge of honor.

She settles into feather pillows, leaning back on her elbows to watch with curious anticipation. You take her hand in yours, kissing the ridges between her long fingers while you remember the risks you’ve taken together. The way she drew you in that night with the crowd below, a pull you couldn’t deny, and how you threw caution to the wind to follow her. The way she’s pulled you across thresholds ever since and you’ve come, _willingly_. You mouth plays up her arm to the spot where her shoulder flows into sharp collarbone and you think of the way she looked under the cold exam light, unguarded and strong.

You lick two fingers then slide them into her. You work her in silence for several minutes, until she exhales a low sigh, relaxing into your touch. You know her preferences, but there's no need to rush; though the sun has set you have hours before dawn. Slow fingers continue dipping in and out as you lean down to press kisses from ankle to bent knee. You think of water running down these long legs, cold water that disappeared in the lab drain along with her doubts. You drag your lips up her thigh and she reaches down to catch at your back, nails scraping up, stinging. She isn’t doing it on purpose —well, not to harm at least— it feels too good and she just can’t help herself. You smile to have earned this. The fleeting pain sharpens your senses.

There is no innocence between you two. You’ve worked each other apart so many times now that you can feel the entire response of her body in a single press of your tongue. It’s not enough to merely thank her. You want to give her everything, to show her she’s all the greatness you saw at your first meeting and to never doubt it again. You want her to remember this, you, and how far you’ve both come. The beginning at the end.

You tell her what she means to you in the curve of your lips and the curl of fingertips on her side, hand snaking around tight waist to her back and pulling her closer against you. As if pressure alone could make her part of you.

Your fingers continue their teasing work, faster now; choked sounds of need fall from her lips that you silence with your own clinging mouth.

There’s a desperation in your movements that she must feel, but you don’t even try to cover it up. She has to know something is different, and good that she should. It will help her tomorrow, to do what she needs to, and in the final accounting she bears the burden of the shift too. After all it was her mumblings in sleep that secured your fate. _Stop._ You move down her body. _A waste to think of it now. Not when you have her like this…_

She tastes mild, always an inviting damp that reminds you of freshly watered grass in the spring. You ache to know that this, too, is familiar. You watch her as you go down on her. She turns her head into the pillow, arches into your tongue.

“Don’t.” You guide her head back with just your voice. “Look at me.”

She does, mismatched eyes returning and not breaking the gaze. Holding it as you lead her closer to the edge, touching her now in the ways she likes, you know her body so well, can trace it in your sleep, riding her pleasure and your own. You watch her climbing higher, register the moment when she likely only sees you in tunnel vision, the edges of this scene darkening for her; her eyes darkening too, the raw tight tension that comes before a fall. Even euphoric she is commendable, a challenge. Not a thing to be broken but an ideal to rise to.

She lets herself go piece by piece, and you lose yourself with her. To not have to think; to feel her helpless to the pleasure you have the power to give her. You crawl up to hover over her, still driving into her, a strong and steady rhythm. She curls an arm around your neck and pulls you closer, hips rising to meet each of your thrusts. You suck at her neck, swirling paths around her racing pulse with your tongue. She begins moaning in Irish then, a litany of unintelligible tones, but you do hear your name braided in among the sounds. It chokes you and saves you, and you fold it up and tuck it away for later.

She’s wrapped around you. Fingers on your scalp and one leg gripping your waist, so when she comes, she comes apart like fire. Consuming and engulfing and suffocating you until your lungs burn for air and she sears your skin. 

You lay panting on top of her, her heaving chest lifting you ever so slightly with each new gasp. She guides you off her, but not before gliding the ghost of a kiss along your temple. Then she pulls away, and gets up to turn off the light.

“Moira?”

You hear a drawer opening then the light clink of buckles and rough slide of leather up skin. She’s behind you again, warm breath on your ear, her voice made of gravel and shadow:

“On your hands and knees.” 

Her accent draws out ‘hands’ and despite your exhaustion your insides clench in anticipation. You do as she asks.

She’s behind you, then she’s in you stretching and filling and drawing out to fill you again and you moan, you can’t help it, it feels so good; you sink to your forearms so you can rock back into her. 

Her rhythm matches her breath and you join her; the only sound in the darkness your soft labored breathing together as she moves in you.

You surrender to her will. She grasps your hips and helps you take her, shifting slightly for a better angle, one that has you biting at the sheets. This is not how you wanted tonight to end. You want to see her.

“Moira wait - 

fuck, 

please,

I can’t—“

But the words won’t come because you’re groaning, the push and pull of her within you a singular sensation that consumes you completely.

She’s guiding you closer and closer to release; her breath loses sync as she brings a hand to move between you, to herself, so that when she finally sends you over the edge she follows close behind.

Muscles tense and release, pulsing blank oblivion; she shudders around you as you collapse together into the mattress, gasping.

You’re beyond exhaustion now; your earlier run and the perfect weariness of shared ecstasy weighing you down. You’re aware of your legs and hips, but the rest of your body is only a sense of lightness.

You sway on the ridge line of consciousness, stumbling to fight off sleep. You shuffle your shoulders to rise up, but she sinks you back down, curling her body around yours, long, soft arms encircling you, her breasts pressing into your back. Comforting, supportive. She brushes your hair aside and breathes a line of kisses up your neck. 

She whispers in your ear. “Go raibh maith agat. For it all.”

You slide your hand into hers as you slip into darkness.

* * *

The next morning, on opposite sides of the world, Angela Ziegler and Moira O’Deorain wake to the same message. One is typed in a subjectless email and the other in a handwritten card, signed ‘xxxxxxxx’.

_**Don’t make her wait.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you. For coming along for this ride. This was a story I told myself in the dark for a year, and then had to get it out, so here we are. See? I wasn’t kidding in the beginning about this being completely self-indulgent :)
> 
> Credit where credit’s due: several bastardized lines as well as the entirety of Chapter 9 are pulled from the pages of _Atlas Shrugged_. Other minor influences include _Harry Potter, the Bible, Robert Frost, Amigo the Devil, and This is How You Lose the Time War._
> 
> Many thanks to everyone for the kudos and bookmarks. Comments and feedback always welcome!
> 
> For some further reads I’ve put up additional scenes that were written to work out background / character development for this piece. 
> 
> #DeletedScenes  
> Reader + Moira: [The Time We Spent Together When the Light Was Out Became My Thought of You ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28684602)  
> Angela + Moira: [Following the Shadow When Behind is the Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585092)


End file.
